Medford students walk out of class, calling for safety improvements after school stabbing
MEDFORD - Medford High School students met with the mayor Wednesday after walking out of class and marching to city hall. They're demanding safety improvements after a student was stabbed in a bathroom at the school on Monday.
The students said changes need to be made to make school safer.
"I walked out of the school because I personally don't feel safe at the school," student April Rossi Ortiz said. "I feel like I should be safe in my own school and not worry every time I go to the bathroom that I'm going to get hurt."
Video captured a brawl in the boys' bathroom Monday, leading up to the moment 17-year-old Jordan Pineda was stabbed. He's now home from the hospital recovering, but his classmates are outraged and nervous something else will happen.
"I think everybody just wants to be more safe," student Amanda Wichec said. "I think everybody is walking out so there's no more fights."
The superintendent of Medford Public Schools says she supports students' decision to walk out of class.
"We want to support student voice and give them an opportunity to express. . . what has happened here at this school," Supt. Marice Edouard-Vincent said.
From the high school, students walked to city hall to make their voices heard to the head of the school committee and the mayor.
"You have to feel safe and that's our job to listen and to fix anything we possibly can," Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn said.
One parent shared her outrage.
"The school committee is sickening, nobody wants them hear anymore," she said.
This stabbing was the second serious incident in two months. School leaders say they are listening to concerns and while they don't have all the answers right now, they are working on making changes - including addressing fights in the bathroom. There will be more supervision in the bathroom and a limit to how many students can go in at one time.
"That is a hot spot that we've clearly identified where things continue to happen so that is our first and highest priority - addressing the bathrooms," Edouard-Vincent said.