1,077 Absent Day After School Brawl : Education: Extra security measures are taken at Chatsworth High after Monday’s racial violence. A second student is arrested.

In the wake of a campuswide brawl that surged through normally peaceful Chatsworth High School, hundreds of parents kept their children out of school Tuesday as administrators beefed up security to prevent a recurrence of the previous day’s upheaval.

According to school officials, 1,077 of the school’s 2,420 students were absent Tuesday, a day after dozens of students were caught up in violent confrontations scattered throughout the campus. About 450 to 500 absences daily are routine.

“I felt it was a potentially explosive atmosphere, and I thought it safer that she stay away from school,” said Lita Boyle, whose daughter Christy is a junior at the school. “I think everybody needed a day to cool off. And frankly, I was afraid that the kids who were involved would all come back today armed, thinking that they should be prepared.”

No violence marred the campus Tuesday as eight school police officers patrolled, in addition to the one regularly assigned to the school, school police Sgt. William Mannion said.

Police, backed up by faculty members, ringed the central quad during the half-hour midmorning break--the time when most of Monday’s violence erupted. Shortly before the break, officers also stopped a car carrying six youths who were apparently “cruising” the campus. The youths, apparently not Chatsworth students, were questioned and released.

The district dispatched five substitute teachers to Chatsworth to let regular faculty members supervise students around campus. Five additional school psychologists also converged at the school to counsel students upset by the violence and to try to resolve differences among black and Latino youths, who had squared off during the series of fights Monday.

“We want to get school back to normal so that kids can come in, do their business and go,” Principal Donna Smith said. She added that she plans to form a committee of parents and students to address Monday’s uproar and other issues affecting campus life.

At a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday night of the school’s Leadership Council, Smith said extra security would be provided as needed in coming days. About 20 parents attending the meeting expressed support for the administration’s handling of the incident, but some said they feared violence could flare again.

Spanish teacher and council member Richard Stalder tried to reassure parents. “We are not going to stand by and let this school turn into a war zone. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

The council--consisting of parents, teachers and administrators--decided to arrange a training session for teachers this month in conflict resolution and crowd control.

The melee was triggered by a boy and girl involved in what administrators said was possibly a romantic dispute. But several students Tuesday said the two students, both Latino, belonged to rival gangs and that the boy began beating the girl after she somehow provoked him.

When a black youth intervened on the girl’s behalf, fighting spread. About 40 black and Latino students, dividing along racial lines, traded blows and threw trash cans and food.

School police contained the violence after spraying Mace--a tear gas spray--to disperse the combatants.

No one was seriously injured in the fighting, but one boy was apparently stabbed in the back with a pen, Assistant Principal Clarence Jackson said. School police arrested one youth on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after he allegedly threatened fellow students with a metal rod, and some suspensions are expected in the next few days as an investigation into the incident continues.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, school police also arrested the Latino youth involved in the argument that sparked the fighting. The boy was arrested on suspicion of trespassing because he had repeatedly returned to the campus Tuesday, even though he had been suspended earlier in the day, said Richard Page, assistant chief of the school police.

Despite the alleged gang membership of some of the participants, both administrators and students said the confrontations themselves were not gang-related.

“It wasn’t really a gang thing,” said one youth, a senior who declined to give his name. He added that black and Latino students normally get along fairly well at the school, where more than half of the students are minorities.

But some teen-agers described an undercurrent of unease that rippled through the campus Tuesday.

“It was really tense,” sophomore Jennifer Hoffmann said. “I think after the cops leave, it’ll still go on . . . because certain people don’t feel they’re avenged.”

Without the extra security, another fracas would have occurred, sophomore Cesar Herrera said.

Mannion of the school police said the extra officers would gather early today to determine whether increased security is still necessary. The additional psychologists also will remain on campus today, officials said.