At least two people were killed and seven injured in a shooting at a St. Louis high school Monday morning and police fatally shot the gunman, officials said.

A student was pronounced dead at the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and an adult woman died of her injuries at a hospital, St. Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack said.

The gunman also died at an area hospital after a shootout with police, Sack said.

Police were called to the prestigious St. Louis performing arts school shortly after 9 a.m. local time.

"The shooter was quickly stopped by police inside" the district said on Twitter.

St. Louis Public Schools tweeted out information regarding the status of the school shooting that took place Monday morning.

"The security staff did an outstanding job identifying the suspect's efforts to enter and immediately notified other staff and ensured that we were contacted," Sack said at a news conference.

Sack did not disclose how the shooter entered the school and declined to identify the suspect. Sack said the shooter was a man in his 20s and "armed with a long gun."

David Williams, a math teacher at the school, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that at around 9 a.m. the school principal used a coded phrase over a loudspeaker to indicate the presence of an active shooter.

Williams said he heard multiple gunshots outside his classroom and one of his classroom windows was shot out. Williams said he heard a man's voice vow that "you are all going to (expletive) die."

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones posted on Twitter: "Help us Jesus."

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones tweets her reaction to the school shooting that took place Monday morning.

Education Week reported Monday's shooting to be the 39th school shooting this year that resulted in death or injury, the most in a year since it began tracking school shootings in 2018.