Granada Hills Charter High School has been known for having a lofty image — elevated by its high academic standards and this year winning the national academic decathlon for the second straight time — the school has won the esteemed title nine times. It has been viewed as a safe school — among the best in the San Fernando Valley with many parents vying to enroll their children each year.
Parents aren’t feeling as comfortable, however, after learning that an adult didn’t immediately step in to stop a male student who brutally attacked a female classmate, reportedly to the point where most of her teeth fell out.
The attack occurred on Monday, Oct. 31, during a Spanish class. According to one student in the class, the victim — a special education student — was laughing at the student for getting an answer wrong. He responded by violently attacking the girl, punching her in the face repeatedly before stomping on her head and dragging her by the hair. The girl was left laying in a pool of blood.
The student assailant was not arrested until the following day and has not been identified.
“There was blood on other students’ clothes and backpacks,” Patricia Gomez, whose daughter attends the school, said of the aftermath.
There were reportedly two male teachers in the room during the attack, one of whom was the victim’s special ed teacher. Multiple parents, including the victim’s family, said neither stepped in to stop the assault.
Parents received a letter from the school on Tuesday saying that a physical altercation had taken place on campus. They listed the steps taken to ensure the safety of students and staff on campus — including additional campus security, daily random searches and K9 detection searches — but did not go into detail about the altercation itself.
“GHC [Granada Hills Charter] has high expectations for student conduct and we have no tolerance for violence of any kind,” the letter read. “The school took immediate action. An arrest was made.”
Some parents said their kids have stayed at home from school because of what they witnessed. Gomez said the teacher in charge of the class also didn’t show up the following day.
“I just think about what if that was my daughter,” Gomez said. “I would hope that one of the teachers would step in, or even one of the students in the class.
“Do I still like the school? Yes, it’s a good school,” she said. “This could’ve happened anywhere.”
Parents like Gomez, however, are questioning why an adult didn’t quickly intervene instead of waiting to call security. She said there are reports that he has been a problem at other schools and recently transferred to Granada Charter.
The San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol reached out to Granada Hills Charter School but the school has not responded by press time.
attacker was a mostly peaceful person of color confused about his place on a the mentally ill gender dysphoric lgbtqiawxyz++++ alphabet soup, so no adult stepped in for fear of being call racist or something-phobic.
A failure by a staff member to protect a child from abuse/attack is illegal. As child care custodians, school staff teachers aides and administrators are required to intervene to “protect the child.” My grandson was violently assaulted in April of 2022, by a Special Ed Asst, witnessed by 5 other adult staff members, reported to a teacher and the principal. Nobody intervened, nobody called police, nobody filed Mandated Reports. The principal and district let the assailant continue to work with children until the end of the school year. Check out Senior and Disability Victimization Act.
Thank you
the teachers should be ashamed of themselves for not stepping in. What the hell is wrong with people today? Hopefully she is recovering.
You are 100% correct. The teachers should be ashamed of themselves, just like the Uvalde cops. Who can we trust our children with if not their teachers and the police? Our society is in trouble right now. We need to stop using racism and homophobia and gender against each other, especially in school. It has made everyone afraid to get involved. Even the cops are afraid to get involved, per police camera footage!!! Teachers shouldn’t have to deal with this, but it’s included in the sfv training manual, so he should have stopped the girl from getting beat up by a boy. What a coward! Nobody stepped up!?!! Wow. Safety first. Right on.
I have a lot of friends who had that Spanish teacher. They say that the teacher is really nice. I’ll let you all know that the LEGAL adult beat, an 18-year-old, has training in boxing. You guys really don’t know the full picture. I would rather blame the system in this society has in place that breeds poverty than blame the product of it. Both the students deserve some kind of privacy with respect to the fact that you can’t blame either of them. You also can’t blame the teacher or the other students around them. This is an obviously traumatic event.
So who the F*** do we blame no one?. That student had no mercy! He beat her until her teeth fell off and her cheek opened up! There was NO NEED to go that far!!! Two grown ass teachers/staff were there and didn’t do nothing!!!!
You’re certainly right. And make no mistake there was something much greater behind an attack this furious than just momentary laughter. But nobody should be surprised. We recently watched the nation’s most expensive and well equipped police forces just stand in the distance as crowds of drunks set fire to their commercial districts. Even though arson is a direct threat to human life they STILL just stood there. So, some teacher doing nothing has become par for the American course. Like the “mighty” LAPD not showing up until the next day for example.
Stop snorting coke. Blame the system? Dont make excuses for cowards. This could have been easily avoided. Hope the dude understands that his a**hole will be ripped apart inside.
Viridiana is right… Blaming no one, but the “system of society” is absolutely unacceptable and just plain stupid. You can make an arguable statement that the teachers are at fault for not stepping in, that’s clear in itself. It’s also clear and truly unacceptable for a senior year student to beat up a special ed student. You can play the “we don’t know the whole picture” all you want. It’s blatantly obvious that a senior year student around 17-18 years old should know what’s right and wrong. You can’t blame the system of society for a nearing grown man beating the hell out of a special ed student and grown adults not stepping in when a girl was getting her teeth smashed in. I’m a graduate of Ghchs in my 2nd year of college and I know fights happen every once in a while, it is high school after all but seeing a senior year student beat up a special needs student almost until the brink of death is something I’ve never seen in my 4 years of high school. I also know Mr. Blanco very well as my younger sisters and friends have had him in the past. I’ve heard great things about him as a teacher but he’s at fault here as well. Ain’t no way the guy and aid just stood there for a whole 3-5 minutes just witnessing everything go down. If anyone is to blame, it’s not “ the system society”, it’s the student and staff in the room. We may not know the whole picture, but as a student who formerly attended this school not too long ago, has siblings and friends that still attend the school, and as a person with common sense; the senior student definitely messed up and is at fault for violating a special needs student and needs to get some mental psychiatric help. He messed up not only the life of the special needs girl but the lives of students around him and consequently his future life too. He basically just threw away his life, but he should’ve known better in the first, like you’re literally a maturing adult now, anyone with common sense knows to blame the student. The staff in the room is also at fault for just watching for 3-5 minutes. We may not know the whole picture but it’s blatantly clear who’s at fault, not the system of society.
Why didn’t the teachers intervene or run and get security are those teachers scared of that student does that student have a violent history since attending that school?
Aren’t special education students usually separated from the rest of the students,so what was she doing in that classroom?
This is why many peaceful people carry weapons. Especially in situations where authority has proven to protect nobody.