Cesar Chavez Language Academy remembers student, aide who died this year

Hundreds of soap bubbles filled the sky at Santa Rosa’s Cesar Chavez Language Academy on Monday, sent by students with abrazos - hugs - skyward during an outdoor ceremony held in memory of two members of the campus community who died last winter.

The first blow to the tight-knit school came in December with the death of first-grade student Axel Sanchez Medina, 6, who drowned when he was swept into the surf with his 8-year-old brother William by a rip current at Goat Rock beach. Their father, Omar Sanchez Hernandez, 31, is believed to have jumped into the frigid water to try to save them, but only William made it out alive.

Then, a month later, a teacher’s aide at the school, Rocio Soto, died after a year-long battle with cancer.

“He loved the bubbles,” said Axel’s mother Maria Medina. “So that’s why we decided to make them today. … We’re trying to be OK.”

She also made lollipops for the event - swirls of rainbow-striped candy with blue ribbons baring Axel’s name, birth and death dates tied around the sticks.

Campus leaders put together the afternoon ceremony to dedicate two plaques created in their memory. The plaque for Axel, remembered for his friendliness and curiosity, will be placed above a friendship bench on the new campus.

Beneath a perfect, blue-sky day, Principal Rebekah Rocha, groups of students and Axel’s first-grade teacher, Jessica Hernandez, took turns with the microphone to remember the marks Medina and Soto made on the campus.

Many students thanked Soto for the literacy work she did. Her plaque, fittingly, will be placed in the library on the Cook Middle School campus when CCLA moves there in the fall of 2019.

“I’m just happy that she helped kids at the school, and that they’re remembering her,” said Soto’s 11-year-old daughter Keren Muñoz, who was there for the ceremony, but goes to school in Suisun City.

The plaques were created following an outpouring of donations from the community and fundraisers on campus, including a popular pozole sale.

Axel’s death was especially hard on his first-grade classmates, said Hernandez, his teacher. Since December, she has worked to create space for her students to remember Axel and support them as they grappled with his death.

“He was so friendly,” she said.

“It’s been a long process of healing for the kids because they really loved him.”

After his death, administrators brought in therapy dogs for the students, and together they remembered all the things they loved about Axel, she said.

“I think his death has really brought us together, building community in our classroom,” she said. “Since we went through the fires, and then going through this, it’s really brought them together. Anytime there’s issues or somebody’s feeling upset, they really comfort each other and really take care of each other in a very mature way that most first-graders wouldn’t.”

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.