nothin Amistad High Students Stage Walkout Over… | New Haven Independent

Amistad High Students Stage Walkout Over Sexual Assault & Harassment

Gabrielle Lopez tells her story at the protest.

Maya McFadden Photos

Students walked out of Amistad High School Wednesday, told tear-filled stories of experiencing sexual assault and harassment, and demanded change.

The protest, organized by the Social Justice Club, began around 8:30 a.m. outside the charter school run by Achievement First on Dixwell Avenue. (Click here to watch the full protest.)

Whose school? Our school!” chanted the students, most of whom were female.

If we don’t get it, shut it down!”

Then students recounted their experiences.

Gabrielle Lopez tells her story at the protest.

My sophomore year, I got sexually assaulted by a teacher that [later] got fired,” recounted Gabrielle Lopez, who is now a senior.

She referenced how that year began with the departure of a principal who came under criticism for shoving a student. (The departure took place after the Independent published a video of the incident.)

I walked into sophomore year thinking it was going to be a normal high school year. We had a new principal. 

I was sadly mistaken.”

She then spoke about a teacher who allegedly attacked female students at the school.

At first I didn’t see [him] as a predator. I didn’t think much of the comments he would make. I stayed quiet,” Lopez recalled.

After a while, Mr. Little tried to help me find jobs. Every time he would try to help me with schoolwork, he would be in the classroom with no one in it.

The first time he touched me, I was in the nurse’s office with a migraine. As I was about to leave to go to class, he opened up a roll of tape and gripped my left breast. And he walked around my body with that piece of tape.

I said nothing.

The next couple of times he would see me in the hallway, he would grip my butt like he was my boyfriend or someone he was dating. I stayed silent. I was scared of repercussions. I was worried he would go farther or I wouldn’t be believed.”

After other people came forward with similar stories, Lopez spoke up, she said.

Unfortunately not everything I hoped would happen happened,” she said amid tears. My father came to the school board meeting. We had a meeting with leadership. They asked what happened. They said, Mr. Lopez, I will keep in touch,’ but that never happened.

More should have been done about it. The conversation we’re having now should have taken place sophomore year.”

Courtney Luciana Photo

Principal Obas, at left, listening to speakers.

Amistad’s current principal, Simon Obas, stood listening among the students as Lopez and others spoke.

There are so many more girls that wanted to talk now,” Lopez told him. They are terrified. They are terrified of what the leadership would have done. They are afraid of the boys … You guys are here to protect us and you have not protected us. Year after year, graduating class, the girls here are not protected. They would rather protect their young men.”

Charity Reid: “I did not see anything change.”

Another student, Charity Reid, spoke about a male student who constantly made lewd comments about my body” her freshman year. She told him to stop; he continued. One day he was reaching for my butt” while she walked in a hallway. Her friends threw him against the wall” and demanded he apologize.

He refused to apologize. He never looked me in the eye. He never said, I’m sorry,’” Reid recalled.

So when I came into my sophomore year and I knew we were having a new principal, I was excited for the change that was going to happen. I kept hearing stories. The staff heard the whispers in the hallways, the disrespect to young women. Yet I did not see anything change. I did not see anything happening.”

Social Justice Club President Jaeana Bethea.

The Social Justice Club’s president, Jaeana Bethea, said students have brought these concerns to school leaders. They have met. They asked for schoolwide assemblies, a new handbook, and other measures to bring the issue into the open and deal with it. We have received nothing but pushback” and threats about retaliation” if they staged a walkout.

Obas addresses the crowd, commending students who came forward.

After the students spoke, they gave Principal Obas the microphone.

I applaud you and commend you for standing up for social justice,” Obas said. He praised Reid and Lopez for coming up here and being vulnerable.”

You said some real stuff out there, some troubling stories, speaking your truth,” the principal continued. On the other side of this, I am very sorry you had that experience in this school. I am here now. No one, nobody deserves to be sexually harassed. That does not belong in this school.” He promised to ensure the high school is a place where sexual violence doesn’t happen.”

Parent Cathy Castro: You are heard.

Cathy Castro, a parent with three children in the school, also praised the students, while expressing confidence in the principal: I am in touch with Dr. Obas, who maybe has not been able to explain how much he cares because he has not been able to.”

Indeed, Obas refused to make any comments to reporters at the rally. He referred all questions to a spokesperson for the Achievement First network of charter schools.

That spokesperson, Amanda Pinto, told the Independent that network updated its family handbook before the start of the school year; has held in-person and virtual discussions with Amistad High parents and families to reiterate our policies and procedures for reporting sexual harassment”; expanded the health curriculum to cover sexual harassment/assault prevention in required courses; and is planning workshops beginning in December on the subject.

We are proud of our students for standing up for what they believe in. We take sexual harassment prevention and awareness very seriously, and we do not tolerate sexual harassment,” Pinto stated.

We are not aware of any active complaints. And we encourage students, if there are complaints, to bring them forth so we can investigate. If we receive a complaint, if it involves a staff member, we place that staff member on administrative leave and take appropriate disciplinary actions up to and including termination.”

Pinto reported that the school is taking a restorative” approach rather than disciplining students who participated in Wednesday’s walkout.

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