At the school district's request, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. is looking into whether gangs are responsible for violence at Woodland Hills High School, including some fights largely involving girls.

There were two more fights at the high school yesterday, bringing the number of incidents since April 17 to at least five.

Three teachers sought medical treatment following a student fight, according to Arleen Starr, staff representative for the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Another teacher's arm was injured when she tried to stop a fight in which two girls started beating another girl, she said.

Mr. Zappala yesterday received a letter from district Superintendent Roslynne Wilson, asking him to help assess "the degree of emerging gang activity in our schools."

At a news conference, Mr. Zappala said he is calling on various law enforcement agencies to share intelligence. He said he has not received evidence of gang activity in the schools.

"We don't know what we have yet, so we don't know what the appropriate responses will be," he said.

Woodland Hills spokeswoman Maria McCool yesterday said two fights on April 17 and one on April 25 centered around conflicts between two girls.

She said several students joined the April 25 fight on behalf of each of the girls.

"Girls have overwhelmingly been involved in recent fighting incidents as of this year," said Ms. McCool.

Teacher injuries in those fights included one whose kneecap was broken and another who had a concussion.

Over the course of the year, Ms. Starr said, fights in Woodland Hills have involved both boys and girls.

Teachers are tallying up the number of incidents throughout the district.

"This situation is extremely critical," said Ms. Starr.

The Woodland Hills Education Association has formed a safety crisis committee, and plans to present a position paper at the school board meeting May 7.

Other school districts are confronting problems with violence. Across Allegheny County, teacher assaults have more than doubled since 2001.

The number of juveniles referred for teacher assault has grown from 102 in 2001 to 179 in 2006 to 245 last year.

"They're all over the map. It could be any school district within the county," said James Rieland, director of probation for Allegheny County.

The county list includes cases in which teachers were injured breaking up fights as well as directly assaulted. By law, an assault on a teacher is considered aggravated assault.

In Woodland Hills, Ms. Starr said, nonteaching staff members have been injured as well.

The union represents 688 employees, more than two-thirds of them teachers and the rest cafeteria workers and support staff including secretaries, custodians and paraprofessionals.

Mr. Starr noted that in a cost-cutting move, Woodland Hills last summer cut more than 60 positions, including hall monitors, cafeteria monitors and paraprofessionals. With attrition, she said, more than two dozen people were laid off. The district then hired an outside agency to provide help.

As a result, the district lost people who knew the students and had built relationships with them, she said.

She said an unfair labor practice case and a grievance are pending.

Ms. McCool said that despite cuts to the number of teacher aides and hall monitors, the number of fights at the high school was down this school year.

The district's main concern, she said, was whether the recurring nature of the fights signaled gang conflicts that could potentially spread through the school.

"We don't know much about gang activity, which is why we made a request to the DA's office to find out if it's a problem, is it out there in our communities and what can be done about it," Ms. McCool said.

"We don't want to close our eyes. We don't want to hide anything. This is an honest request for help."

Richard Garland of One Vision, One Life, a county Department of Human Services violence prevention initiative, cautioned administrators against categorizing the violence as gang activity.

He acknowledged that fighting among teenage girls in school is on the rise; however, he said, conflicts in Woodland Hills most likely stem from individual battles and long-standing community tensions, not gangs.

"A lot of the things we encountered at Woodland Hills [are] fights that started at parties and [students from different neighborhoods] clique up," he said.

Woodland Hills school board member Regis Driscoll of Wilkins said, "My understanding is most of these fights aren't so much gang activity as it's activities that happen in the community that come to school the next day or two days later and are continued."

He noted the district covers 12 municipalities.

"I know there's probably some gang activity in the schools, but I don't know to what degree it's the gangs and to what degree it's just grievances people have with each other," Mr. Driscoll said.

Another school board member, Robert Tomasic of North Braddock, said the county has placed too much subsidized housing in the school district, some special education students take advantage of requirements that limit their suspensions, and the district has lost some key disciplinarians.

Mr. Zappala noted that he met with Woodland Hills officials last fall to see that they report serious incidents to local police, after some raised concerns about whether police were being notified.

He said indications are that the reporting situation has improved.