LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Residents near a high school in eastern Nebraska have been complaining about students who loiter outside their homes.

Several residents near Northeast High School in Lincoln asked the Lincoln Board of Education for help with the issue at a meeting Tuesday.

Students smoke and leave trash, according to resident Marty Ramirez. Students sit in their driveways, drink alcohol and have urinated on their property, other neighbors said. Some students have become increasingly confrontational and some residents are afraid to go outside, the homeowners said.

“It’s escalated to a crisis situation,” Ramirez said.

School officials said they’ve worked to address the issues. Some of the young people who gather in the neighborhood have been kicked out of school or no longer attend, but go there to see friends, officials said.

“I think at every school we have a group of students that probably smoke and would like to have the opportunity to be out of class once in a while,” said Principal Kurt Glathar. “It’s not a group of students who decided to go out and make the neighborhood miserable.”

The situation began to improve a few years ago once police and city officials moved a bus stop in the neighborhood closer to the school.

“Since then it’s worked quite well,” Glathar said. “We’ve been able to monitor the bus stop.”

While the move did help for a while, students have since moved back to loitering in the neighborhood near the home of a student, Ramirez said.

Lincoln Police Officer Nate Hill, the school resource officer, said many of the students who gather outside homes don’t cause problems and do as he asks, though there are exceptions. Hill said he’s issued tickets for littering and alcohol possession.