Santa Rosa students protest violence on campuses, claim administrator inaction

SANTA ROSA — High school students in Santa Rosa walked out of classes Friday afternoon to protest failures by officials that they say led to a deadly stabbing inside a classroom earlier this week.

Students claim school administrators are not doing enough to address ongoing problems with violence and bullying on campuses.

Two 16-year-old boys were injured — one of them fatally — after being stabbed in Wednesday’s fight in an art classroom at a Santa Rosa high school.

Students from several schools staged the walkout, gathering at Maria Carrillo High School in Santa Rosa. They are calling out administrators for what they say is a failure to address issues on campus after the fatal stabbing at Montgomery High School Wednesday.

A 16-year-old boy was arrested for bringing an unloaded firearm to Maria Carrillo on Wednesday.  

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Demonstrators said that incident was just the most glaring example of a worsening problem. 

“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,” Maria Carrillo student Damian Esparza Sanchez said Thursday. “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.”

Some parents said they are also growing more alarmed after hearing stories from their kids about what sometimes happens at school.

“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,” said Montgomery High parent Christina Tupper.

Parents say there is a history of bullying within Santa Rosa schools that has never been addressed.

On Thursday, the mother of one of the teens injured in the deadly classroom stabbing said officials at Montgomery High could — and should — have done more to prevent it.  

KPIX reached out to Santa Rosa city school administrators to see if they have a response to these allegations but have not yet heard back.

Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez has released a statement regarding the case.

“As always, our goal is to seek justice for crime victims and the community at large. We will do our best to provide timely information regarding our decisions,” the statement read in part. “However, please keep in mind that my ability to share information is regulated by safeguards protecting the privacy rights of minors.”