Montgomery High School staff pushing to reinstate campus officers after latest student attack

On Tuesday morning, yet another video was posted to the Telegram app thread, joining hundreds of others that show students fighting in the Santa Rosa City Schools district.

This one depicted two girls, one pinned to the floor and suffering over 30 blows to the head.

The fight took place in the bathroom of Montgomery High School, one of the district's biggest high schools and a school frequently in the spotlight after repeated episodes of student violence.

The school is often cited by parents and faculty members as the prime example why more safety measures are needed in the district’s middle and high schools, and last week’s episode added fuel to their quest.

“When you hear that someone's been assaulted, and especially as soon as the video gets put out there and you see the severity of it, all the feelings just go back to ‘Oh gosh, we literally do not have a handle on the violence,’” said Rebecca Sullivan, Montgomery High’s health technician.

Sullivan has worked at Montgomery for nine years, four as the health technician, and was the first person to attempt to treat Jayden Pienta after he was fatally stabbed in a Montgomery classroom last March.

“It’s just triggering, over and over again,” she said.

Sullivan checked on the 14-year-old student on Tuesday — she received up to 30 punches to the head and neck — and quickly called 911.

“She is going to be affected for the rest of her life,” Sullivan said.

“But it affects everyone else around the campus,” she continued. “We as a staff, as parents, as a community and even our students. That's why we are pushing so hard for another safety resource on our campus because what we have is not working.”

The suspect, another 14-year-old, was arrested by Santa Rosa police Tuesday. The injured girl was taken to the hospital and released later that night.

The fight occurred only two weeks into the new semester, and there were no campus police officers to break it up.

At the end of the fall semester, officers were stationed across the district in response to a knife incident on the Herbert Slater Middle School campus. However, they were only contracted to stay in place until the semester was over in late December.

Sullivan said there was a clear shift in the campus atmosphere in the two weeks the officer was present at Montgomery.

“The tension was so much lighter,” she said. “We felt like we could breathe a little bit.”

Schools across the district have seen violence with increased intensity since students came back from COVID shutdowns.

Concerns after Pienta’s death last spring escalated until eight months later, when a middle school was put on lockdown after a student brought a knife to school and initiated a fight.

Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Anna Trunnell responded with the decision to place officers temporarily at all high schools, and a majority of the board agreed to explore restoration of a pilot school resource officer program.

Both were generally seen as positive steps by teachers, parents and students, many of whom now are frustrated at the lack of momentum.

Trunnell said the district is unable to bring back the temporary officers to campus, mostly because of funding. When the district ended its contract with the city for the school resource officer program in 2020, the funds were reallocated elsewhere.

The district was charged approximately $37,000 for the two weeks at the end of the year when five officers and one sergeant were split among the district’s five high schools and five middle schools.

In the meantime, she pointed to the on-site resources available to students and applauded school site administration for continuing to inform students about the mental health and restorative resources available to them on campus.

“We have been providing layers of support and the addition of more staff on campus to be able to demonstrate to our students that we are there to support them, and that we have more individuals available to support them,” Trunnell said. “It's concerning and alarming that this behavior continues.”

Both available restorative justice positions at Montgomery are filled, and one of four available campus officer positions had been filled as of Jan. 19, according to district officials.

Sullivan said that while it is important to have more adults on campus, the real need is for more adults who can actually intervene when a fight breaks out.

“They want to bring in more campus supervisors, but that still doesn't change the fact that none of us can touch those students and break up a fight because we are not trained to do that,” she said. “I just think all signs point to the return of SROs; how that'll look and how fast we get that done. The pressure is on.”

The district and the city were supposed to meet to discuss next steps for the program on Jan. 8 but the meeting was canceled by the city four days prior, said Board President Omar Medina during a Jan. 10 school board meeting.

“We find ourselves in a position where we have been unable to meet since our last gathering on Nov. 6,” Medina said. “It’s disappointing that despite our commitment to collaboration, we have faced challenges in meeting regularly.”

Trunnell is hoping that the city and district committee will resume within the next month. Discussions will now be about moving forward with the next steps for the pilot, and will likely be centered around funding, she said.

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