Santa Rosa students call out school administrative failures after fatal stabbing

SANTA ROSA — It’s still unclear what happened when a 16-year-old student was stabbed to death and another was injured during a fight at a Santa Rosa high school on Wednesday but several parents have shared stories of their sons being bullied in city schools.

The fight at Montgomery High School that ultimately ended in a homicide broke out after two male students, both juniors, entered an art classroom and engaged in a physical altercation with a freshman boy. At the time, 27 students were in the class along with the teacher and three teacher’s aides. School staff broke up the altercation but, moments later, the fight continued, according to Santa Rosa police. A student pulled out a knife and Jayden Pienta, 16, received three stab wounds to the upper part of his body and another student received a stab wound to his left hand. Both victims  received emergency care until paramedics could arrive.

Pienta later died at the hospital.

Many parents and students are afraid to return to school and are now taking action.

Damian Esparza Sanchez and his mother stopped by Jayden Pienta’s memorial with flowers. The two had played baseball together growing up. Sanchez said he can’t stop thinking that, if the school had done more, Jayden would still be alive.

“We feel the administration, just the way they are running things and how they’re handling situations like this, it really angered the students,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez attends Maria Carrillo High School in Santa Rosa where a 16-year-old boy has been arrested for bringing an unloaded firearm to school on Wednesday.

Students want their voices to be heard.

“After every school in the county got threats about school shootings or just incidents in general, it made the students, including me, really worry about the future of the school and what would happen and then we heard about the incident here, we started posting on social media about a walkout tomorrow because us as students didn’t feel safe anymore,” Sanchez added.

Many parents are also contemplating what they can do to protect their children. 

“My daughters come home almost daily and tell me ‘oh my God mom, there was another fight today. It was really bad!’ Almost on a daily basis.”

Christina Tupper said there is a history of bullying within Santa Rosa city schools that has never been addressed.

“This bullying thing, it needs to be addressed. Not just at a high school — across Santa Rosa — because my daughters, even from kindergarten, were bullied,” Tupper said.

Until concrete action is taken, many are worried about stepping into a classroom again.

“I don’t even know when I want to go back if I want to go back at all because of how administration is handling this. It’s a tough decision to make for the future of my education.” Sanchez said.