Students protest after teen suffers serious brain injury at South Kitsap school
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- Two students were injured and one arrested after an incident at South Kitsap High School.
- Around 100 students walked out in protest of the school’s handling of the incident.
- School and police corrected misinformation and said communication could have been clearer.
Students and families are concerned after an emergency reportedly left a South Kitsap High School sophomore hospitalized with a traumatic brain injury Nov. 20 and police arrested a suspect in class.
Meanwhile, police and school staff maintain that they handled the situation appropriately but acknowledged that communication with families could have been clearer.
Port Orchard police officers arrested a 16-year-old boy after he allegedly tipped over a stanchion, which is an upright bar or post, off of the top floor of the school, the police chief and school district superintendent told The News Tribune in a phone call Nov. 25. The stanchion fell 16 feet from a landing and struck students who were sitting below, according to police. It hit a 15-year-old girl’s head, and injured another 15-year-old boy who called 911, Police Chief Matt Brown said.
A GoFundMe campaign to help support the 15-year-old girl’s family says that the girl is a sophomore and cadet for the South Kitsap High School Navy Junior ROTC Wolf Battalion. She “received several stitches in the back of her head and was diagnosed with a TBI (traumatic brain injury) that could alter her life forever,” the GoFundMe says. A reporter reached out to the organizer of the GoFundMe but did not immediately hear back the afternoon of Nov. 25.
The News Tribune received a call from Jeff Saltzman, a lawyer for the girl’s family, the afternoon of Nov. 26. Saltzman said he doesn’t have any statements to make on behalf of the family at this time and is waiting to receive incident reports and arrest reports related to the incident.
On the morning of Nov. 25, a large group of South Kitsap High School students walked out of class in protest of the school administration’s response to the emergency, the Kitsap Sun and Kitsap Daily News reported.
A post about the walkout on a Port Orchard community Facebook page had some 1,300 reactions and over 460 comments by the morning of Nov. 26. Many expressed concern about the school’s alleged response to the incident and supported the protesters, while others said they needed more verified information about what had occurred.
What happened?
Brown told The News Tribune in a phone call Nov. 25 that police responded at 10:58 a.m. Nov. 20 for a call about a student who had been hit in the head with a pole. Officers arrived at 11:01 a.m. and found a 15-year-old girl in the nurse’s office receiving medical aid.
A Police Department statement posted on Facebook on Nov. 25 said that South Kitsap Fire & Rescue also provided medical aid and the girl was transported to the hospital for additional treatment. A second victim, a 15-year-old boy, was also struck and reportedly suffered a head injury. He was transported to a local hospital in a private vehicle, the statement said.
At 11:13 a.m., officers arrested a 16-year-old boy in a classroom for suspected reckless endangerment and third-degree assault. Police booked him into the Kitsap Juvenile Detention Center, and “charges may be filed by the Prosecutor’s Office as appropriate,” the statement said.
Brown told The News Tribune via email in response to follow-up questions Nov. 26 that the stanchion is roughly three feet tall and between 16 and 20 pounds, and fell about 16 feet after being tipped over the railing. The act appears to have been intentional, he wrote.
Brown said a second individual was present, and that police interviewed that person.
How did staff respond to the incident?
Asked about concerns regarding how staff responded to the emergency, South Kitsap School District Superintendent Tim Winter said a lot of information is circulating that is not factual. The incident occurred in a stairwell, and the only people present at the time were the two victims and students on the top floor, he said.
“The first contact made with a staff member was as the student was calling 911 and was walking to the health room, and the staff member was supporting those students,” he said, adding that the school’s assistant principal also responded.
The district sent a letter to families the day of the incident with an apology from the police chief for allowing the student’s arrest to occur in view of other students, Kitsap Daily News reported.
Winter said that school staff were rushing to release information and that they’re aware of concerns that the school seemed “more concerned about the student who assaulted the other students versus the victims, but our priority is really the wellbeing of the victims and we did our best to take care of them.”
“We were in full support of the arrest of the student,” Winter said.
Brown also told The News Tribune he owns that his “statement was poorly worded.”
“There are nuances to law enforcement activities within our schools. We discussed the time, place, and manner of making arrests within a classroom. The goal is not to disrupt the learning environment any more than necessary; we do not consider providing a criminal suspect the means to escape embarrassment or accountability,” Brown wrote in the department’s statement posted Nov. 25.
No officers were disciplined for how they handled the event on Nov. 20, but the department does debrief “just about everything” to determine areas of improvement, he said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to state that a reporter spoke with a lawyer for one of the injured students’ families on Nov. 26.
This story was originally published November 26, 2025 at 12:19 PM.
