For years now, neighboring Evergreen High School (EHS) students allege they have been victims of sexual assault from teachers. On December 8, EHS students walked out of class to protest the district doing, what they say, is not enough about these allegations. Students at Camas High School joined in the fight for student voices, staging a walkout on December 14 during the sixth period.

“There have been multiple cases dating back to 2018 saying that teachers have been sexually assaulting students, whose voices have not been adequately listened to,” said CHS junior Erin Connelly. “A lot of CHS students know Evergreen students. They’re our friends, they’re our peers, they’re people that maybe used to attend our school.”

Some Evergreen students believe teacher-on-student sexual assault has been happening for quite some time within the school walls. They say those allegations have been brushed off by the district. According to ClarkCountyToday.com, there are multiple reports of students asking for assistance from teachers against certain staff regarding sexual abuse and inappropriate conduct for a student-teacher relationship and yet once a teacher has been convicted, the charges do not include any of the allegations made by students.

After the EHS walkout, students and other local schools, including CHS, joined in protest of student voices being ignored. 

“By protesting it, I’m hoping that we can get rid of it everywhere in Washington, not just Evergreen. We need to protest every single district,” said freshman Salami McConneha.

“We want to listen to their voices and demand that Evergreen do better. We want to demand that they listen to the students,” said Connelly. “We want this to be handled.”

“Throughout the day I’ve heard teachers try to prevent us from doing this because they say that it’s not directly related to us, so we shouldn’t be protesting. I don’t think that’s fair,” said an anonymous student.

The official word from CHS administrators was that students have a right to protest. They asked teachers to not prevent students from walking out but to take attendance as normal, marking students absent who were not in class.

“I think supporting sexual assault survivors and our community is more important than skipping some assignment because that’s something you can do later. This is a big problem that needs to end now,” said freshman Sabeen Mirza.

“People planned this walkout in solidarity. It’s to say, ‘Hey, we stand with you and we stand with the students.’ They were planning this and when I was asked to help I just couldn’t pass it by,” said sophomore Gus Bandfield.

Student leaders at CHS plan to stay up to date with the news in Evergreen and will plan to organize future events as the story unfolds.