‘It’s been a year, why are we still here?’: Santa Rosa parents rally for safety, march to school board meeting

Parents with the Safe Campus Alliance held up yellow signs in Santa Rosa’s Courthouse Square on Wednesday afternoon, as passing drivers honked and waved.

Nearly 40 community members gathered in the square before the Santa Rosa City Schools board meeting, hoping to call attention to safety in the district.

The protest came as the district on Friday prepares to face the one-year anniversary of the day tragedy struck at Montgomery High School. An altercation on March 1, 2023, among three students ended with one being fatally stabbed in a classroom.

Some attendees on Wednesday afternoon wore white memorial shirts with pictures of a smiling 16-year-old, Jayden Pienta, the student who was killed.

Emboldened by a year’s worth of grief and rage, the group’s message is now focused on using their collective voice to take down school board members who oppose bringing back a districtwide school resource officer program. They believe the program is just one of many steps needed to prevent violence on Santa Rosa campuses.

“What do we want? Safe schools! When do we want it? Now!” and “Recall Omar!” they chanted as they marched down Third Street.

Safe Campus Alliance is focusing first on recalling Board President Omar Medina, who has staunchly opposed police presence on campus, citing historic and well-documented inequities in the way students of color have been treated by police.

Medina is one of two trustees who have consistently voted against the return of campus officers. The second, Alegría De La Cruz, who shares Medina’s concerns, is up for reelection in November. The organization has vowed to oppose her as well.

“We don't really have a lot of power and authority, other than when we get to vote on Election Day,” said Melissa Stewart, a Montgomery High parent and one of the Safe Campus Alliance leaders.

“We just thought this would be a really good way to get together to march and keep the focus on what we can do — and what we can do is recall Omar Medina.”

Medina initiated the petition that resulted in a pause of the SRO program in June 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd's death at the hands of police. Medina has said he supported halting the program so the district could reexamine the district’s agreement with the Santa Rosa Police Department.

He has continued to express worries that police on campus would target students of color, or at the very least make them feel unsafe, given the legacy of trauma.

Parents in the Safe Campus Alliance, however, feel Medina, along with other school board members, are placing their personal opinions above student and faculty pleas for safe campuses. They feel strongly that police presence is one option that could make a visible impact on violence prevention and response at school.

On Wednesday, the signs they carried read “It’s been a year, why are we still here?” and “Recall Medina.”

One mom, Amanda Dalton, approached fellow protesters in Courthouse Square on Wednesday afternoon with a clipboard she’d been using to collect recall petition signatures of residents who live in Medina’s district.

Dalton said the recall was something that needed to be done after what feels like a year of inaction.

“Every student should feel safe at school and the school board has not listened to our pleas and made any concrete plans,” Dalton said. “I am just sick to death of committees and meetings.”

The group is also using the moment of the anniversary to revisit the demands that community members made last year after Pienta’s death.

“We want to stay focused on why we're all gathering again, why we’re here at another school board meeting, when our students have shown up and begged — literally begged — (the board) to do something. And that’s from mental health to campus supervisors to restorative justice to SROs,” Stewart said.

Jesse Jones, a 12-year-old Slater Middle school student, rode his bike to the protest with his friend.

“I showed up because I feel like we need to make a change,” he said. “There should be more SROs on campus just to make kids feel a little more safe at school.”

Since the Montgomery death, schools across the district have seen a surge in violent incidents. The demand for more safety measures reached a fever pitch in December when a Herbert Slater Middle School student was arrested for bringing a knife onto campus.

It was a breaking point, Stewart said. The group formed with initial hopes to bring back school resource officers, and to eventually bolster mental health and restorative resources on Santa Rosa City Schools campuses.

Less than a month after the middle schooler was arrested — and following student-led protests and walkouts from teachers — trustees voted 5-2 to endorse bringing forward a pilot program to reintroduce police officers to campuses.

The joint district and city committee in charge of going forth with the program has yet to provide an update to the community.

“It felt like a victory getting that vote for a pilot program, for the discovery of a pilot program, but then we just really aren't hearing if there's any progress,” Stewart said.

The Santa Rosa Teacher’s Association has shown their support for SROs, and wants to continue to support the parent group’s message for safety, said Kathryn Howell, the union president.

“We made kind of a conscious decision to not push our members for (Wednesday’s board meeting), knowing that the parents were going to fill the room,” she said. “We're really going to be backing up parents at this point and letting them put their message forward.”

The district did not have a specific agenda item to discuss the one-year anniversary.

Report For America corps member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. Reach her at Adriana.Gutierrez@pressdemocrat.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8531 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter,) @alana_minkler.