In 1967, a portion of the student body was transferred to the new Lakewood High School. Gordon Young became principal in 1968. Boca Ciega, by then only grades 10–12, had been an all-white school until 1967 when one black student was enrolled that year. Then in 1968, 85 black students were transferred from then-overcrowded Lakewood High. It led to the first of several racial disturbances at the school over the next five years, the first on April 23, 1969. Court-ordered desegregation took place in 1971, which sparked a week of racial disturbances in December. Hugh B. Kriever became principal in 1973. That year, racial violence again broke out at the school on February 5; and on April 11, which was later labeled by a hearing examiner as "a full-fledged racial riot".