At recent Cleveland School sporting events, disagreements between the student section and the administration have resulted in multiple students being kicked out of the opening football game, and a new policy towards student misconduct at future games.
The conflict started at the Sept. 11 football game between Cleveland and Parkrose. Cleveland fans packed the house and there was a buzz of energy in the student section before the game even started. That excitement only grew when the teams took the field and Cleveland got off to an early lead.
About this time, senior Ace Ramsey was lifted and crowd-surfed around the student section. He was immediately kicked out by Vice Principal Danielle Cota and security. Ramsey and other students present maintain that he was forced to crowd surf and it was never something he intended to do.
“Obviously, you can’t crowd surf, but I was hurt and kinda sad getting kicked out for something I couldn’t control,” Ramsey said.
After this, many students were upset with the administration, but despite this, the energy was still high among the students. As the game went on, there was a lot of back-and-forth verbal sparring between the student section and Vice Principal Cota over acceptable behavior. In the third quarter this boiled over and a large group of students, estimated at 20 students, were removed from the stands.
“The thing that was the most concerning was predominantly male presenting students circling up in the stands to form a mosh pit,” Cota said. “The student section was warned a couple of times. Cota continued, The student section continued to form mosh pits and fall on top of each other, so at that point, I called security agents in to help clear the stands.”
This only further aggravated the student section and resulted in the majority of students leaving the game early in solidarity with their classmates.
“It’s still a social event, we’re there to have fun. Me and a lot of other kids decided just to leave,” said senior Josh Pontefract. “ur friends and half the student section wasn’t there. We wanted to support the team, but the fun was gone.”
After this game, the Cleveland administration agreed on a new policy that has already gone into effect. The new policy will ban any student removed from a game or any other event for the remainder of that athletic season.
Pontefract also expressed concern about this sentiment carrying over to future games, saying, “Cleveland is known for having one of, if not the best student sections in PIL, but when we’re being micromanaged on what we can and can’t do it kills the excitement. I noticed at the next home game, there were a lot less kids, and the mood definitely wasn’t the same.”
Several staff members have brought up the point of student safety being a major issue at these games. However, a lot of the students actually in the student section disagree.
“Last year in the student section we did all the same things, and no one got hurt. This year no one has been injured. There is an understanding when you join the student section that people are gonna be getting rowdy and hyped up, but it’s only the front middle group jumping all over the place. Plenty of people who don’t want to be a part of that simply move further back or to the sides where it’s not as crazy,” Pontefract said.
Many students feel the combination of potentially being banned from all future games and staff over-policing students will take the fun out of attending Cleveland athletic events.