Berkeley High arrest tears open old wounds — what's next?
For the past week, school administrators have prohibited all Berkeley police officers from entering campus without permission, sources said.
The recent arrest of a student on the Berkeley High campus sparked a protest this week and surfaced concerns from some about the ongoing police presence at BHS.
After the arrest, school administrators prohibited Berkeley police from entering campus without express permission, a school staffer told The Scanner on condition of anonymity.
"They are allowed to patrol the perimeter but not allowed to enter campus unless called upon by administration," the staffer said.
The role of Berkeley police on campus has been a controversial topic for years, with school officials at times calling for more officers and at times none at all — often in response to the broader political landscape and events across the nation, such as the 2020 murder of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
For more than a decade, the Berkeley Police Department has had a single officer assigned to Berkeley High, with supporters of the position saying it fosters a stronger relationship with students and a deeper understanding of the nuanced, complex job of keeping kids safe at school.
Some have even pleaded for a second BPD officer on campus, an idea that reportedly has School Board support. For now, however, that proposal is on hold due in part to low police staffing and limited funding.
Critics of police on campus say armed officers don't make them feel safer and that minority communities often bear the brunt of disparate enforcement.
In recent days, some students and at least two BUSD teachers expressed concerns at public meetings about last week's student arrest, which took place Tuesday, March 4.
The student was reportedly arrested on suspicion of threatening a school safety officer, refusing to leave the Berkeley High campus and being intoxicated, sources said.
Additional details about the alleged crimes remain sketchy this week.
Teacher: This was a student in crisis looking for help
But a Berkeley Unified special education teacher brought her concerns about the arrest to the School Board during public comment at a recent meeting.
Teacher Amanda Cardno told school officials in a prepared statement that one of her students, who attends Berkeley Technology Academy (BTA), had gone to Berkeley High on March 4 for a counseling session Cardno helped arrange.
(Another person read Cardno's statement on her behalf due to technical issues on Zoom.)
Cardno told the board that the student had the permission of his own counselor as well as BTA's principal and Cardno herself to attend the session, adding that the student has an IEP and that his assigned counselor works at Berkeley High.
Cardno coordinated the session with the student and his counselor, she said.
After the session, Cardno wrote, the BTA student "was accosted by multiple safety officers," the small BHS security team that's employed by BUSD.
Cardno said "an argument ensued" between the student and the safety officers and that, "eventually, multiple BPD officers were called."
"This was a student in emotional crisis looking for help," Cardno wrote. "They were met with aggression and a lack of deescalation tactics."
In her statement, Cardno said any charges filed against the student should be dropped and called for "BTA students to be treated with respect and dignity."
"BHS often treats our BTA students as trespassers," she told the board. "I understand that they attend different schools, but multiple BTA students are enrolled in BHS classes and vice versa. We have to have systems in place to ensure students can safely attend counseling sessions and feel like valued members of the BUSD community, not like trespassers."
No further information was available this week about what charges the student might be facing, if any.
Black Student Union demands removal of school resource officer
But the arrest prompted the Berkeley High Black Student Union to call for the removal from his position of BPD School Resource Officer Lino Guananja, writing on Instagram last week that he had been "overstepping his jurisdiction" during recent on-campus arrests.
In the post, the Black Student Union made serious misconduct allegations against the BPD officer, claiming he had "used violent language and excessive force" and "created an unsafe environment for black and brown students at BHS."
"We do not want him within our school walls," the student group wrote. "We demand that this school resource officer is removed, and fired from working within BUSD."
The group subsequently shared an anonymously authored online petition calling for the officer's removal, saying he had violated unspecified BUSD "board policies."
The petition also demanded systemic reforms, including "extensive training" for future BPD school resource officers (SROs), education for students about their rights, and regular SRO meetings with student leadership.
As of publication time, several hundred people had signed it.
On Wednesday morning, participating Berkeley High School students walked out of class onto the senior steps in the central quad and braved stormy, blustery weather to question the role of police on campus and demand "more safety protocols."
The group also marched through at least one Berkeley High building while chanting, "No justice, no peace, no racist police."
According to the principal, 100-150 students were present for the event at its peak.
Others said attendance was much sparser, perhaps due to bad weather.
(The Scanner did not attend the walkout in person but reviewed a handful of student videos that were shared on social media after the fact and seeking additional materials.)
Several parents told The Scanner they hadn't heard anything from BHS school administrators about last week's arrest on campus.
But they did hear about it from their kids around the dinner table Wednesday night.
BHS principal: "No disruption" to classes or school activities
According to records reviewed by The Scanner, BHS Principal Juan Raygoza did email staff last week on the night of the arrest to provide some information.
Raygoza wrote that a BUSD student had been "apprehended" that day on the Berkeley High campus by "multiple BPD officers."
"There was no disruption to any classes or school activities," Raygoza wrote. "However, there were students in proximity who may have witnessed it."
In the March 4 email, he said he couldn't share further details about the arrest due to the ongoing investigation.
"There is no indication that any other student or staff member was at risk or that there was any intent to cause harm to the BHS community," Raygoza wrote, adding that counselors were available for anyone who needed support.
Raygoza, who became Berkeley High's principal in 2020, has received mixed reviews from a number of parents and staff who have worked on school safety issues for years as well as other parents who simply want better communication when it comes to matters of public safety (a perennial community demand that predates current school leadership).
Raygoza has never responded to a request for comment from The Scanner despite more than a dozen attempts to reach him dating back 2.5 years.
And there's been ample opportunity to respond or provide important context.
Crime at Berkeley High has been tough to track
This past school year alone, the high school has made headlines for safety issues numerous times, including after a student was pistol-whipped in October; when a fake bomb — which turned out to be a prop for a school project — caused a campus-wide evacuation in November; and when two students were arrested with guns on campus in December.
In February, a student was robbed during a dice game just across the street from Berkeley High behind the main post office.
More recently, community members raised concerns about a growing homeless encampment at the park across from the high school, particularly after the sexual battery of a student on her way to school by a man who came out of the park.
Community sources have generally alerted The Scanner about these events many hours before BHS advised parents, when that happens at all.
Still, even amid other safety issues, arrests of students on the BHS campus are rare.
They are also difficult to track, as BUSD data has been scarce and BPD has declined to share much information about arrests involving minors.
That was true when it came to the recent arrest of a teenage girl who attacked another student off campus in mid-February, sending her to the ER, the victim's mother, Maria Garcia, told The Scanner.
(BPD declined to provide even general information about the arrest despite repeated inquiries about it.)
Garcia, who works for BUSD in addition to being a parent, said district staff had failed to put a safety plan and no-contact order in place before the attack, despite knowing in advance that the girl had been threatening her daughter.
The unprovoked attack, which took place outside McDonald's during lunch, was recorded and posted on social media by other students, some of whom used it to bully her daughter online, Garcia said.
"When I watched it, that video broke my heart," she said. "I am hurting for my child."
Garcia said she had also been disturbed to learn that BHS administrators refused to let BPD on campus to arrest the assailant on the day of the attack.
The girl was then "on the run" until BPD managed to arrest her in late February, she said.
Garcia said Raygoza declined to meet with her about the attack, and that it felt like the district administrator handling the matter was dragging her heels on the investigation.
Eventually, Garcia said, BUSD did put a no-contact order in place, but her daughter had not wanted to return to school for weeks due to her ongoing safety concerns.
"This should have been in place before something like this happened," she said. "They don't take action like they should."
Garcia's concerns were echoed recently by her sister, Sara, who has been a safety officer at Berkeley High for more than a decade.
Sara Garcia began speaking out at public meetings last fall, raising concerns about how Berkeley High approaches campus safety.
As a result, she said, the district put her on paid leave.
"I'm the whistleblower," she said. "I'm the most outspoken of the bunch. It didn't come as a surprise to me."
In a recent interview, she said the district hadn't provided any explanation for its decision to put her on leave.
Garcia said she and her colleagues brought their concerns to Principal Raygoza at the beginning of the school year, including about students bringing knives to Berkeley High, a lack of supervision for special needs students who had then wandered off campus, and the school's failure to share critical information with safety officers after a student was robbed.
As a result, the victimized student was attacked and hurt again, Garcia said.
"They're supposed to let us know when they have a suspension," she said. "Had we had that warning, we would have been able to escort the [offending] student off campus."
Garcia said BHS administrators also didn't share key details with safety staff when they were searching for students with guns on campus in December.
She raised a variety of other issues, too, from pervasive vaping by students to an admin decision to periodically ignore fire alarms rather than evacuate campus.
"Nothing like this would have ever happened under [Erin] Schweng," she said, in reference to the prior BHS principal who left in 2020. "It hasn't been safe since Raygoza took over."
In late February, Garcia also spoke out at a public safety town hall organized by Mayor Adena Ishii and Councilman Igor Tregub focused on the Civic Center Park encampment across from Berkeley High.
That night, Garcia testified about "ongoing issues related to the presence of unhoused individuals near our learning environment," including one of her safety officer colleagues who was bitten by a dog while removing an unhoused individual from the Berkeley High campus.
There had also been an issue, she said, after an unhoused person snuck onto campus and began charging his laptop in a classroom with students present.
The man left to find a bathroom and was approaching a student in the hallway when a safety officer spotted him and escorted him off campus with the help of three colleagues, she said.
"This is an almost daily occurrence at Berkeley High School," she said that night. "The safety officer team remains steadfast in their belief that more can, can and must be done to protect our students and staff. There are over 3,200 students in our school and these incidents simply can't continue."
Last month, conflict over safety protocols at Berkeley High reached a fever pitch between the district and many parents on the BHS Safety Committee, nearly derailing the group's efforts to approve a safety plan for the second year running.
In the end, district staff and parents were able to reach consensus, but only after intervention by the superintendent and a pledge to "reset" the Safety Committee with more responsiveness and transparency from the district going forward.
The outcome of that work remains to be seen.
On Wednesday night, The Scanner sought comments about the recent arrest from Principal Raygoza, Berkeley Unified, the president of the School Board and the Berkeley High Black Student Union but had not received a response as of publication time.
The Scanner has also asked the Berkeley Police Department for comment and will share any relevant context that is provided.
Stay tuned for ongoing coverage about school safety at Berkeley High.
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Emilie Raguso
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