Edhat Staff
By the edhat staff
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is investigating an incident involving two men on Canalino Elementary School campus with children present on Thursday, April 13 in Carpinteria.
The incident has upset school staff and parents who are asking for increased security and transparency.
According to messages sent to parents via ParentSquare, Canalino Principal Jamie Persoon was not present during the incident while dealing with a plumbing issue in a separate building but a district employee noticed the two men and confronted them.
One of the men stated he was a parent of a third grader and provided a name. The staff member began to guide the men to the school office where they needed to sign in when they took off running towards and exit and fled the area. The name of the student the man provided was not found on file with the school.
The staff member called 9-1-1 and deputies searched the area approximately thirty minutes later, but the men were not found. The school and classrooms were not placed on lockdown during the incident.
Deputies did not find a breach through any of the schools gates and security cameras did not catch how the two men entered the campus.
Principal Persoon stated in a message to parents it’s possible the men came from the Pacific Village neighborhood behind the campus as a neighbor stated their backyard gate was damaged in a possible robbery attempt. The resident theorized it’s possible the men attempted a robbery by entering his backyard and was scared off by his dog prompting the men to jump the wall into school grounds.
The Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information to call the Carpinteria station at (805) 568-3399.
Anyone wearing a mask outdoors is suspicious or clueless. ( but in case wear only one person is wearing a mask walking with one without, it may be good reason; like they are sick or have kids who are sick)
To better understand the intruder event at CANALINO, these details are worth considering:
•The intruder event began at the DO and spilled over to the CFS and CANALINO campuses when immediate measures to report the intruders were not taken.
•# 911 was NOT immediately called. In fact, #911 was not called until AFTER the intruders fled from the campus. Meanwhile, the intruders were permitted to enter school-site grounds adjacent the District office, where District personnel & students remained; entirely unaware that intruders were on campus.
•Although the intruders were on the District property for at least 10 minutes, and perhaps as many as 17 mnutes, there was no school-wide notification or alert of an intruder on campus.
This meant that teachers continued to send aides and students, our children, out into the open & public spaces on campus, while the intruders were present.
•Superintendent Rigby’s statement that “district employees followed the district’s safety protocols.” are in complete conflict with the District’s HOUR-ZERO safety training & protocols.
That the CANALINO SCHOOL SITE PLAN was followed does not mean employees followed ALL SAFETY protocols, as stated by Superintendent Rigby to the community and media outlets. The CANALINO SCHOOL SITE PLAN is intended to be used in unison with CUSD’s HOUR-ZERO incident response protocols.
Again, District Office, CFS or CANALINO personnel DID NOT RECEIVE ANY immediate alert or notification, as these HOUR-ZERO trainings and protocols require.
* On April 21, 2023, a PUBLIC INFORMATION REQUEST was filed; to collect the best and most accurate data associated with the April 13, 2023 intruder event. As of this date, the information request remains unresponsive and unrecognized by the Superintendent, the Canalino Principal, or any member of the CUSD School Board. [See request here: https://cause2216.org/ ]
Not every danger can be prevented, but the District has a responsibility to implement routine and cost effective methods to ensure the SAFETY of District students, employees, and their families. Again, these SAFETY initiatives (cited above) once existed across the District, before the current Superintendent divested in these practices.
Thank you J for continuing to raise awareness of this situation. Principal Persoon is also part of the problem here. She’s been incredibly difficult to communicate with and is defensive and combative with arguments. Instead of taking an empathetic approach to freaked out parents and focusing on what can be improved, she’s instead taken a Trumpian approach to attacking “media lies.” Her parent square messages are absolutely unhinged and contradictory. First saying all the stories are false then just taking aim at a few. Even notice above with Ed’s “correction” and basically it’s just a minor edit to the campus structure and NOT to the crux of the story being no one knows for sure how long these men were on campus or where exactly they got in, just assumptions. So rightly, parents are freaked out and want to ensure security, not a wing nut railing against splitting hairs to make herself look good.