Shock, Anger and Calls for Change in Santa Rosa in Aftermath of Fatal School Stabbing

Updated 5:30 p.m. Saturday 

A student walkout is planned at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa on Monday to demand increased safety in the aftermath of a fatal on-campus stabbing at the school. Possibly more walkouts are planned by students at other schools in Santa Rosa, where many see the death as the culmination of increased violence and insufficient safety measures in the Santa Rosa City School District’s high schools.

“A lot of the students and parents are shocked and honestly angry,” said Alana Minkler, education reporter for The Press Democrat, in an interview with KQED. “They feel that their school failed them because they’d been speaking out about frequent school fights and facilities that are aging and hazardous. So they feel mad that a student had to die to raise awareness about all of these issues.”

The incident occurred on March 1st, when, according to witnesses and the police, two high school juniors entered an art classroom to confront a 15-year-old freshman. In the ensuing fight, the freshman student, whom police are not naming because he is a juvenile, stabbed 16-year-old junior Jayden Jess Pienta to death and injured the other student. The freshman was found hiding in a creek bed after he fled the classroom and was booked on suspicion of homicide.

On Friday, students from Maria Carrillo High School in Santa Rosa held a walkout and demonstration on Montecito Boulevard to show solidarity with Montgomery High and to draw attention to rising concerns for campus safety, with some Montgomery High students also joining the demonstration. In a separate incident at the school, just hours before the incident at Montgomery, The Press Democrat reported that a student at Mary Carrillo High was arrested on suspicion of obstructing police and accused of bringing a gun to school. Other security incidents reported over the last month at the same school included a hoax involving a school shooting and a fire at the school.

A memorial event was held with about 100 students at Montgomery High School on Friday after the Maria Carrillo High School walkout, with art projects, pizza, and the opportunity for students to grieve. The Press Democrat’s Alana Minkler, who attended the memorial event, said the general feeling was one of shock, sadness, and anger.

“A lot of them talked about their frustration and sadness while they were there,” said Minkler. “They gathered around a flagpole that was covered in pictures three feet high, piles of flowers and candles … It was a tense and sad day.”

The school remains closed until Monday. Principal Adam Paulson, in a message to parents, students and the school community on Wednesday, called the stabbing “the darkest day anyone can remember at Montgomery High,” according to The Press Democrat.

Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Anna Trunnell described it as a “truly a sad day” and “heartbreaking.” On Saturday, Trunnel announced (PDF) that a “community listening session” would be held Tuesday, March 7, at 4:30 p.m. at the Friedman Event Center, 4676 Mayette Ave., in Santa Rosa.

Jayden Pienta’s stepfather, Tom Lenwell, told KTVU on Thursday that he was reeling from the violence.

“I’m hurt. I’m sad I’m never going to see Jayden again,” Lenwell told reporters. “I’m not going to be able to joke and laugh with him. Those days are gone.”

The Santa Rosa City School District is expected to hold a board meeting on March 8 to address the stabbing and enable students, parents and teachers to speak out publicly about rising school violence and security concerns.

Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Christopher Mahurin on Thursday said investigators are working to interview the 27 students who were inside the classroom at the time, as well as the teacher and teacher’s aides, as detectives investigate what caused the fight. Mahurin said detectives have not yet discovered why the upperclassmen began the brawl, though the three students appear to have known each other and had fought previously.

At a press conference at Montgomery High School on Wednesday, there were heated exchanges between students and the SRPD, with several students raising questions about their safety and asking why school officials did not do more to stop the students’ behavior despite knowing there were problems among the three teens. One student asked, “Why has it taken a loss of life for [the police] to start caring about this school?,” to which SRPD Police Chief John Cregan replied that removing SRPD officers from the campus was “a decision by the Santa Rosa School Board.”

Students and parents at Montgomery High say that safety has been an issue for some time on campus.

“The school knew that the three kids were having problems, and they didn’t even bother to help out before Jayden’s murder,” said Lyla Snyder, a 16-year-old sophomore at the high school, in an interview with KQED. “The fact that those two boys were able to either leave their class or come onto campus and enter the art classroom shows the lack of control we have on the campus and the lack of safety that we prioritize on the campus.”

Snyder added that she has “felt unsafe at school before.”

“I’ve seen weapons that people have at school that the school doesn’t even notice they have. I’ve seen so many fights,” she said.

Officials had earlier said none of the campuses in the Santa Rosa City Schools District have metal detectors or police officers inside.

Snyder told KQED that she and her fellow students planned to hold a walkout at 11:15 a.m. Monday, saying they will “all walk out of class in protest, and go into the quad and speak about what is important and then return to class.”

On the same block as Montgomery High is the Church of the Roses, which serves free breakfast to high school students and staff every morning. Jayden Pienta used to be one of those students. Rev. Cindy Alloway, aka Pastor Cindy, who is head of staff at the church, didn’t know Jayden personally, but had conversations with students daily. She said some of the students felt like what happened Wednesday could’ve been prevented.

“They said the teachers did try to intervene a few times. But these particular students were saying that they thought they needed the resource police officers back. They felt like that would have prevented some of the bullying that was going on that caused this incident. They think it would have maybe nipped it in the bud before it became such a terrible, tragic incident,” she said.

Alana Minkler of The Press Democrat says she thinks the student body is torn on what exactly they want, and that although everyone agrees on the need for increased security measures, not everyone agrees on what that might entail.

“There’s been a lot of fights on campus in recent years,” said Minkler. “Some of them [remember] student resource officers on campus. In June 2020, the school board voted to pause that program and haven’t put it in place since. But some of those seniors remember what it was like to have those officers on campus, and they want them back. Other students feel like they don’t want their campus to feel like jail or for students of color to feel uncomfortable. So they’re torn on that. Some students want metal detectors. Other students just want more support for their faculty members, and they want more trained behavioral specialists to help intervene when students get into fights.”

Alloway, of Church of the Roses, told KQED that it’s important to listen to the students more to understand what’s happening so as to be able to intervene before things escalate.

“The lesson for us as adults is to always be listening to the students, to the teenagers, especially if they are calling out for help or if they are being bullied, to look for signs of that and to try to intervene before it would become a self-defense kind of fight like this seems to have been, according to the students that were talking to me. Every school, I think, right now needs more school counselors who are really there to listen and not just be guidance counselors for going to college someday. I’m a psychiatric nurse therapist before I became a pastor. And teenagers, they go through so much, they really need counselors right there in the school,” she said.

Snyder’s mother, Kari Snyder, also believes the most important thing right now is to provide counseling for the students and to develop what she called “emotional intelligence skills” through face-to-face and physical interaction.

“I think it would be good for them to state how they’re going to feel safe, and what the school can do to make you feel even more safe. They need to be told, ‘Safety is our highest priority. You’re here with us, you’re family, and we want you to feel safe. And we’ll do everything that it takes to make sure that this gets better. Because you are our family. When you’re here, you are our children,” she said.

With more than 1,600 students, Montgomery High School is the second-largest school in Santa Rosa and in need of major repairs, according to a report published by The Press Democrat last week.

The school, built in 1958, has exposed wires hanging from the rafters in hallways; wooden skirting around the foundation of old portable classrooms is rotting; and students often must wait to get home to go to the bathroom because the ones at the school are foul smelling and there aren’t enough available, according to students who spoke to the newspaper.

Lisa Cavin, associate superintendent of business services for the Santa Rosa City Schools District, told the newspaper the district hasn’t had the funds for some projects over the years and that constant vandalism diverts money.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately have a comment Thursday about the potential filing of charges.

This story includes reporting by The Associated Press, The Press Democrat and KQED’s Riley Palmer, Elize Manoukian and Attila Pelit.