Nearly 250 Phoebe Hearst Elementary School students stayed home from class Monday to protest the removal of two beloved sixth-grade teachers. Many of the students who skipped class marched alongside their parents outside campus Monday in an effort to gain the attention of the school district.
The walkout is the latest organized attempt to pressure Sacramento City Unified School District to reinstate longtime Phoebe Hearst teachers Jeanine Rupert and Mark Henrikson after they were both reprimanded by district administrators.
District spokesperson Al Goldberg confirmed that 244 of the school’s 634 students were absent today, but noted that this number was not broken down to include how many absences were excused or unexcused. Goldberg said that the district had no comment to make on the protest.
Rupert was reassigned to another school after she removed a piece of carpet following a flea infestation in her classroom on the last day of the 2024-25 school year.
After Rupert’s reprimand, Henrikson, her fellow sixth grade Gifted and Talented Education teacher, rallied at school board meetings and public demonstrations to have her brought back to Phoebe Hearst. He was placed on administrative leave earlier this month, leaving his classroom with a substitute teacher.
The 150 parents and students of all elementary grade levels who attended the march around the school chanted and carried signs in support of the two educators — one was a play on the district’s motto, reading “SCUSD, putting retribution first” instead of “putting children first.” Another read “our teachers are more valuable than old carpet.”
“It’s chaos — it’s not even fun to come to Phoebe anymore every day, because very few times do we actually know who’s going to be in front of our class teaching,” said Mateo Friedman-Pitti, a sixth-grader in Rupert’s former classroom. “We’ve had 10 people teaching us this year.”
Students from Phoebe Hearst Elementary hold handmade signs during a walkout at East Portal Park in Sacramento on Monday, protesting the removal of sixth-grade teachers Jeanine Rupert and Mark Henrikson. At center, 7-year-old Emilia Lambruschini holds a sign reading, “Our teachers are more valuable than old carpet,” a reference to Rupert’s reassignment.
Friedman-Pitti noted that the only academic progress he made this year was in Henrikson’s advanced math class, and with the teacher’s removal last week, he hadn’t learned anything since.
Parents began organizing the protest after SCUSD Superintendent Lisa Allen rejected their request to have a town hall meeting to discuss what was happening at Phoebe Hearst, saying that the personnel matter involving Rupert had already been concluded with due process. Spokesperson Al Goldberg told The Sacramento Bee the same day that they had said all they were going to say about the situation.
“It’s really frustrating because we don’t have any answers for the district,” said mother Janelle Reali. “We don’t know why these teachers are gone, and they’re not responding to us, and they just won’t listen to us.”
In their continued public efforts to get Rupert and Henrikson back, students and parents consistently use the phrase “above and beyond” to describe how the two teachers approached their jobs.
“They really are the cornerstone of our Phoebe Hearst community,” said Kim Mulligan, one of the key parent organizers in the effort to bring Rupert and Henrikson back.
Rupert has made it clear to the district that she is seeking her job back. Her lawyer submitted a letter to the district last week threatening legal action if she was not reinstated at Phoebe Hearst. She and her lawyer are alleging the district retaliated against her for reporting unsafe classroom conditions and publicly opposing school site administrators’ plans to eliminate full-day kindergarten at Phoebe Hearst. They are also alleging sex-based discrimination, claiming that male teachers and administrators have done more substantial renovation than remove carpeting without similar discipline.
Kimberly Mulligan, whose son was a student in Jeanine Rupert’s class at Phoebe Hearst Elementary School last year, holds a sign made by her daughter Ellie — also a student there now — during a student walkout at East Portal Park in Sacramento on Monday. The protest was in response to the removal of sixth-grade teachers Rupert and Mark Henrikson.