A North Bay high school is facing tough questions Monday about why staff didn’t step in faster when a student attacked another in the school cafeteria.
The fight happened at Rodriguez High School, part of the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District last week.
Since then, video of the incident has been circulating on social media and has parents in Solano County outraged.
It shows a Rodriguez High School girl attacking another girl eating lunch, all while a staff member stands by but instead of intervening, steps out of the way.
“I’m really surprised that with a zero tolerance for bullying and that type thing, that something like that is still going on in our school system here with FSUSD," said parent Connie Shirazi-Anderson.
“I’m shocked by that video that you showed me, it's alarming,” said parents Christine Usman.
The campus monitor is seen radioing for help, and eventually two administrators break it up. But parents say it went on for far too long before someone stepped in to help.
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“They didn’t interfere until she was basically on the ground, really getting hurt. So no, that’s disturbing to me,” said Usman.
“The member of the staff that you see in the video is one of our campus monitors and in their annual training they’re instructed not to physically intervene in this type of altercation, and instead to step away and ask for help, which, that's what she did,” said Lindsey Michels of the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District.
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She’s the spokesperson for the district and said the campus monitor did precisely what she's trained to do.
They say for insurance liability reasons campus monitors are instructed to be hands off.
“We really care about the safety of our staff members and to have somebody go in there unaided and unsupported is unsafe,” said Michels.
Parents said they’re angry at how it was handled and will be demanding change. They’re worried for their children’s safety
“I'd like to think when I drop my daughters off that they come home in the very same condition I drop them off in, that they’re not going to come home with even scratches on them because we like to believe in safety in the schools here,” said Shirazi-Anderson.
For many, that sense of safety has been breached.
“You have to intervene, you have to do something. You can’t just standby and watch and she was just watching,” said a parent who didn't want to be identified. "You can’t just be a bystander and watch as someone’s kid is getting pummeled, it's not right."
