Students walk out at Marshall High demanding better school security after campus stabbing
About 500 students walked out during a break at John Marshall High School in Los Feliz Thursday, demanding improved security measures after the on-campus stabbing a day earlier of two students.
Several Marshall students who walked out said school administrators need to do a better job protecting them. They suggested a range of safety measures that could be taken, including more accessible mental health counseling, a stronger security presence and possibly even random searches for weapons and drugs — although they said such actions are not supported by all on campus.
The students said the stabbings came after another on-campus student assault in a classroom on Monday, raising their fears about campus safety.
School district officials would not respond to queries about the Monday incident but said that security measures have been increased at the school and a mental health team had been dispatched to the campus.
A 15-year-old, 10th-grade student said she witnessed one of the two stabbings, which took place on school grounds in an area with basketball courts and classroom bungalows. Four angry students appeared to jump another student and one of the attackers stabbed the student, she said. The student was stabbed in the midsection.
Several students said the other stabbing took place nearby, involving other students, and resulted in a less-serious injury.
District officials declined to discuss details of the stabbings. School police have confirmed that an altercation took place on campus Wednesday at about 3:30 p.m., resulting in two students being stabbed and then briefly hospitalized. A person of interest was detained and released.
The situation at Marshall is the latest to unfold involving school security issues as concern over campus safety has spiked in Los Angeles Unified and nationwide since the mass shooting in May at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Recent incidents in L.A. that have elevated worries include a Sept. 22 stabbing across the street from Grant High School in which one student attacked another. In June, a Grant High student had been injured by gunfire around dismissal at the perimeter of the school and was hospitalized.
Last month, a 15-year-old girl died of a drug overdose in a bathroom at Bernstein High in Hollywood. The student had obtained a fentanyl-laced pill from another student on campus. Two high school boys who attended a different school on the campus were arrested, including a 15-year-old who allegedly sold the pill to the girl.
LAUSD acts in response to overdose death of student at school. Also will step up parent outreach and peer counseling.
Marshall High is renowned for a Gothic-style main building and a rich academic tradition that includes two national academic decathlon championships. The school has a rigorous gifted and high ability magnet and also touts programs in health sciences and sports medicine and environment studies. Principal Gary Garcia is among the district’s most experienced administrators. The school, with 2,000 students, is located in a leafy and hilly Los Feliz neighborhood and has a diverse, Latino-majority student body.
A few students suggested metal detectors to keep out guns and knives but acknowledged that metal detectors at the entrance might make the campus less appealing to prospective families.
Students who walked out Thursday said their sense of security on campus has been jolted — and in a debate that mirrors the community at large, they had a range of opinions about what to do. They all agreed more mental health support is needed.
Some students said a stronger law enforcement presence might be necessary.
Periodic random searches would be an invasion of privacy, said 10th-grader Gabrielle Ghazarian, but could “make sure that everyone is safe and everyone is not bringing things that are a danger to themselves or other people to school.”
Her classmate Marina Wells disagreed, saying she opposes returning to the previous practice of stationing a police officer on campus.
“I don’t think we would need a school police officer if the administration was taking more care of the students’ mental health and just figuring out what’s going on with the students,” she said.
Vivienne Moncure-Leen, a 10th-grader, said the school needed better communication and more transparency on what is going on.
In a message Thursday to parents, Principal Garcia listed measures taken in response to the stabbing, including increased supervision, more mental health counseling and a law enforcement presence.
“Our supervision staff is conducting hourly perimeter gate and fence checks,” Garcia said in the message.
Even though an armed police officer is no longer permanently stationed on campus, unarmed security aides are part of the regular staff. Several students said there are two such security aides — not enough, they said, to properly supervise the sprawling campus of 2,000 students.
Garcia said temporary measures include “increased patrols by the Los Angeles School Police Department, especially during morning and afternoon safe passage times.” Two school police officers had been assigned to the campus for the remainder of this week.
There also is “increased supervision” between class periods and “social psychiatric workers are on site to assist staff and students with their mental/emotional needs.”
Garcia did not respond to an email request to comment.
Supt. Carvalho signals that he’ll support school police in response to parents’ concerns. Student activists demand defunding.
Students said they reacted more strongly to the stabbing because of a Monday incident in a 10th-grade classroom.
Two students in the class said they witnessed a student launch an unprovoked attack against another student, hitting the victim in the back of the head with a weighted tape dispenser, which shattered, then continuing to hit him with a mason jar, which cracked.
The alleged attacker ran out of class, but eventually went to his next class, from which a school administrator pulled him shortly before the end of the period, according to a student in that class.
In the meantime, the school had gone on lockdown, students said. After the alleged attacker was removed from class, the lockdown was lifted and announced as a “false alarm,” students said.
One parent said she was alarmed when the alleged attacker was allowed to attend school the next day.
“I understand that things happen. It’s how they dealt with it afterwards,” said Claire Flewin. “This wasn’t two kids roughhousing on the playground. It was an assault.”
“That isn’t fair for the kids in that class to have to be put straight back the next day into class with a kid that assaulted another kid,” Flewin said.
Marshall students said they were familiar with the fentanyl-related death at Bernstein and said their school — which they praised in other respects — also has a drug problem. Drugs are available on campus and students are taking them on campus, they said.
Los Angeles schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is preparing to bring forward a districtwide school safety plan that will include his vision for the use of police and other security measures. He’s also pledged to make public information about drug use campus by campus.
A coalition of groups, including Students Deserve, United Teachers Los Angeles and the ACLU of Southern California, sent a letter last month to Carvalho and the school board opposing calls to increase school police.
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