Beaten student goes into seizures

Sandalwood High School is a campus of more than 3,200 students. That makes it the largest school in Duval County.If you ask Darlene, who has asked us not to use her last name, she says the school is one of the most dangerous in the area."I'm just appalled," says Darlene.Her grandson goes to Sandalwood.

Last week, she says her grandson witnessed something that caused her to pull him out of school at Sandalwood permanently."Seeing his best friend beaten unconscious and falling to the floor in a seizure."The school and its resource officers say the student was sent to the hospital and two others students were later arrested.

The First Coast News I-Team has learned eleven students have been arrested at Sandalwood in the last two days. The charges vary from causing disturbances to battery. One student was even arrested for making a weapon in shop class."Number one, you're gonna get arrested. Number two, were gonna recommend you go the alternative school," says principal Victoria Schultz.Schultz says she is enforcing a zero tolerance policy.JSO is also looking at what is causing the problem."We've had some detectives from our gang unit come out and do interviews and we can't verify there are gangs here at Sandalwood," says Lt. Joe Medlen.Schultz calls them cliques.

Lt. Medlen says some of those cliques have adopted gang terms and monikers, but they are not organized.Right now, there are two school resource officers and a team of security guards who patrol the school and its grounds trying to stop a problem before it starts."Our goal here is to make Sandalwood safe," says Schultz.Darlene says she isn't taking any chances. She's pulled her grandson from Sandalwood and plans to enroll him somewhere else."I believe the school is too large and it's gonna take a lot more than what they are doing to get it under control."Since school began, 27 students from Sandalwood have been arrested.