Screams and bangs echoed inside Ohio’s largest youth residential treatment center, buried deep in a state forest. A melee had erupted, with fighting in the hallways and between classrooms. Some children rushed outside to grab rocks. A teacher ushered her students into the cafeteria for safety, giving a lollipop to soothe one crying 11-year-old boy.
During the mayhem, another teacher texted her mother, pleading with her to call 911: “Call them. Call mom please.”
Volunteer firefighters arrived first at Mohican Young Star Academy, but waited for police to stop the violence before entering. A cavalcade of patrol cars from multiple departments, meanwhile, rushed to the facility about an hour northeast of Columbus. Some officers arrived within minutes, while others had to drive at least 30 minutes past farmlands to get there.
The April fight involving more than a dozen Mohican residents left many of them, along with staff, with injuries, including a pencil stab wound to one child, according to police reports. Two workers were treated at a hospital, one of them for a concussion, according to medical reports.
“It was chaos. That day, it was the whole campus. There had been brawls before, but this was the whole school jumping,” said Michelle McDaniel, the teacher who moved her kids into the cafeteria. Fearing for her own safety, she resigned in May from Westwood Preparatory Academy, the charter school that serves the youth at Mohican.
The 110-bed facility that aims to treat children with behavioral and mental health problems had survived a state effort to shut it down several years ago over frequent 911 calls, runaways and the use of restraints. With new owners and renewed expectations, the brawl — one of five since November 2024 that drew law enforcement — has fueled doubts among community members, staff and first…
Luzerne County Councilman John Lombardo, left, talks with friend John Eric Poli at The Knights in Pittston while waiting for election returns Tuesday night, Nov. 4, 2025. 
