Santa Rosa superintendent: Rincon Valley Middle students used school accounts for presentation filled with hateful, potentially threatening content

After a week of silence, Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Anna Trunnell released details on a set of racist and hateful Google Slides that threatened a Rincon Valley Middle School student and spurred a police investigation.

That investigation, however, has been unable to proceed because police have not been provided with the confirmed names and contacts of the students involved.

Trunnell sent a message to Rincon Valley Middle School families on ParentSquare, the district communication portal, Monday night after parents raised questions and concerns over the investigation.

According to Trunnell, several Rincon Valley Middle students in March used a Google Slides presentation to share racist and hateful comments and images with each other through their school-based email accounts.

One student added images and text “of a threatening nature to a third-party student,” Trunnell wrote.

At some point, a student shared it with a small group of teachers, spurring a district and police investigation. Trunnell noted they did not know if it was shared accidentally or intentionally.

Last week, district officials learned of the slides, and were able to clearly identify those who were involved and to what extent they contributed “to the distasteful and concerning content,” because they used their school accounts, Trunnell said.

It is unknown if the physical threats were shared with the student who was targeted or if there was any violence that followed the threats, Trunnell said. However, the Santa Rosa Police Department is investigating.

“I am sure that you understand that I may not share the names of the students or the discipline that we will be imposing, but I can assure you that this situation has our full attention,” she wrote. “These conversations take place with the students and their families and are not the subject of broad(er) community discussion.”

On Monday, Trunnell had declined to share any information in the incident, saying it was a private disciplinary matter.

“Students can make mistakes, even very bad mistakes, and it is always our intention to assess the situation and determine how we can help them learn from their missteps so that they do not repeat them,” she said in the ParentSquare message. “It can be hard for a person, most especially a young student, to face their errors and the consequences with an attitude of self-reflection if they are the topic of social media discussions. For this reason and in accordance with student privacy rights, we do not discuss student matters publicly.”

Santa Rosa Police Spokesperson Lt. Christopher Mahurin said the department was not aware the district had clearly identified and disciplined suspected students until it was revealed in a Press Democrat article.

He said investigators had requested the school provide the students’ contact information so officers could complete the police report, but were told by a school official that permission to release student contact information would have to come from someone higher up in the district. That permission had not been granted as of Wednesday afternoon, Mahurin said.

“It really is important for us to have a report, whether it was criminal or not, in case these students commit a hate crime down the road in order to establish a pattern of behavior,” he said.

In response to the stalled investigation, Trunnell said she would follow up with her team on the matter.

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