Calls for safety, budget-cutting restraint fill Santa Rosa City Schools board meeting

Between a parent-led rally for safety and a vote on layoffs because of budget shortfalls, Wednesday’s meeting of the Santa Rosa City Schools board had all the makings of a long night.

Two days earlier, parents were told that the district plans to lay off 85 staff members, which came as a shock to many. And two days later, it would be the one-year anniversary of the fatal stabbing of a student at Montgomery High School.

The rows of seats in the Santa Rosa City Council chambers were nearly filled as the seven trustees settled into their seats.

By 6:10 p.m. the room was overflowing, with some attendees left waiting outside the chambers.

It would be hours before the board would get to the issue of the layoffs.

Signs across the room pushed various messages. One said “DISMANTLE the School to Prison PIPELINE.” Another said “OMAR HOW WRONG YOU ARE,” a reference to Trustee Omar Medina, who critics view as a major impediment to bringing school resource officers back to district campuses.

Earlier in the evening, a group of parents, teachers and students marched from the Courthouse Square to the City Council Chambers to rally for improved safety in anticipation of Friday’s anniversary of the death of 16-year-old Montgomery High student Jayden Pienta.

Pienta was stabbed in an altercation involving two other students. . The incident sparked countywide protests for safer campuses, and led to the formation of the Safe Campus Alliance, a parent group that organized to pressure the school board to bring back school resource officers.

The group showed up in force at the meeting, but they would have to wait to address the board.

Around 7 p.m., Santa Rosa Teacher Association President Kathryn Howell stepped up to the rostrum for her report, representing about 850 certified teachers.

Between safety issues, funding concerns and “the big elephant in the room” — the number of certified teacher cuts — Howell said she struggled with where to start.

She pleaded with board members to think carefully about the impact of budget cuts and urged them not to cut health benefits for teachers.

“This number of cuts without a doubt, in every way, will impact our students, and impact their safety,” she added.

Mary Lehman, president of the California School Employee Association Chapter 75, which represents 639 classified employees at Santa Rosa City Schools, also spoke on behalf of those who may lose their jobs.

“This year the district hired more administrators than ever before,” she said. “Are we seeing any reductions in directors or coordinators of the district, even though those numbers increased during COVID?” she asked.

When it was Superintendent Anna Trunnell’s turn to present her safety report, she disputed allegations from Safe Campus Alliance and others that the district has done little to improve safety in the past year.

“I want to make it clear because I know that there are some people who feel that we've done nothing, and that is further from the truth,” she said.

She listed areas of improvement, including hiring one restorative justice expert at each elementary and middle school, and two at each high school; exploring the School Resource Officer program; reinstating the Safe Schools Ambassadors program; and providing de-escalation and restorative professional development.

She said the district continues to review how to improve safety and school culture, and reiterated that these processes take time.

None of the trustees directly addressed the anniversary of Pienta’s death, school safety or the layoffs in their board member reports.

Finally by 8 p.m. public comment began.

Several members of North Bay Organizing Project spoke out against school resource officers, listing studies and statistics about the harm that results from police in schools, especially the disparate treatment of students of color.

Kelsey Vero, a member of the nonprofit’s police accountability task force, spoke out at the meeting to talk about the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a phrase used to describe the well-documented ways that school disciplinary policies and practices have historically pushed at-risk students, particularly children of color, into the criminal justice system.

“We have heard here a few times about the criminalization of school discipline disproportionately affecting students of color and leading to trauma and criminal records that follow them and increase the likelihood to be incarcerated as as adults,” she said. “What I haven't heard discussed here is the use of force on students when school resource officers are on campuses, which is relevant to the question of safety.”

Several members of the Safe Campus Alliance spoke at the board meeting, including one of their leaders, Stephanie Taylor.

“Here we are, all together very concerned about the safety of our schools,” she said. “We are still here one year later, and no significant changes to make our students and staff safer have been made.”

Teachers also took to the rostrum Wednesday night to share their safety concerns, some of which have been present for many years.

“In the years leading up to last March, teachers at Montgomery were going to the district, telling them we need help, telling them things were getting progressively worse,” said Margaret Buhn, a special-education teacher at Montgomery High. “No one listened. The following March, someone did die … A year later, all you’ve done is listen and talk.”

“It’s not enough and it’s moving too slowly,” she continued. “If you don’t want SROs, do something to keep us from needing them.”

During public comment for the resolution to approve employee reductions, several members of the public, many Spanish-speaking family members, asked the board to spare the dual-language and Spanish speaking programs.

“In your hands you have the dreams of those children, I ask that those dreams become a reality,” one mother said in Spanish.

One student, Johnny Ando, a 17-year-old senior at Santa Rosa High, said he was concerned about the impact the staff cuts might have on struggling Spanish-speaking students and families.

“It can't be emphasized enough how important it is to keep the budget open for English language learners, and the resources for their families, large, and usable,” Ando said.

Trustee Ever Flores expressed being taken aback at the news that they were in such bad financial standing by the Sonoma County Office of Education to the point where they are seemingly having to suddenly lay off so many employees.

“I’m just a little concerned because I don’t understand why we are having this discussion with SCOE instead of our personnel in here,” he said. “I just find it a little bit out of character for us to have this discussion right now, here, instead of with our staff to make sure this happens right.”

Trunnell said she had invited members from SCOE to the meeting in order to involve them in a conversation that they’re both responsible for overseeing and involved with due to cuts in districts across county and state.

“We are talking about people and people who have invested in supporting our communities, our students, our staff and our families,” Trunnell said. “So it feels like we are losing parts of our family by even looking at a list like this and it is shocking because we haven’t had to make deep cuts in quite a long time.”

While it is unfortunate they’re in this position, Trunnell said, the district must ensure they maintain board sovereignty, otherwise SCOE and the state would intervene “and make decisions for us.”

“We need to be really smart with how we move forward,” she said.

Trustee Alegría De La Cruz asked what would happen if they didn’t vote on this resolution tonight, and the response was that they would risk missing deadlines.

After hearing the answer, De La Cruz replied: “We’d essentially be playing chicken with the state.”

Trustee Ed Sheffield noted: “As stark as it sounds, this is the reality, and it is really sobering. Some of the signs were already there, and the school community needs to know that we have some really challenging days ahead. Declining enrollment, we heard about it, the reality of it, and we’ve been talking about it for the past few years, and that reality is now hitting us.”

At the end of the night, trustees voted 7-0 to approve the seniority levels, staffing priorities and finally, the employee reduction.

Staff Writer Adriana Gutierrez contributed to this article. You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8531 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @alana_minkler.