KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Marialexa Sanoja publicly quit her job as a Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools police officer over concerns with the district’s handling of student safety needs and founded a nonprofit to help kids escape the challenges in Wyandotte County.
In the three-and-a-half months Sanoja was stationed at Wyandotte High School, the district’s largest school with 1900 students, Sanoja said she filed 140 incident reports and that in most instances the district failed to take action. The district, through its YouTube channel, disputed her figures and asserted it handled concerns responsibly.
“It didn’t take long for me to find out that the students were not in the best interest of anybody,” Sanoja said. “When the police officer becomes a safe space for students, there is something wrong with that.”
After her resignation in December 2023, Sanoja founded Missión Despegue, translated to “mission takeoff,” a nonprofit that helps parents and students document their grievances with the school district to hold the district accountable for its handling of safety issues.
Sanoja saw the district’s response to a sexual assault case and its communication as inadequate, and experts echo her concerns. Now, Sanoja works with current and former students to get their GED certificates, drivers licenses, mental health care and prevent substance abuse.
Sanoja’s concerns
Sanoja said much of the Latino community, which makes up 72% of Wyandotte High School, is afraid to complain or make a scene because many of them are new to the country. She aims to empower them, and help them achieve the “American dream.”
One reason Sanoja resigned — and a former student dropped out — was because of the district’s response to the former student’s experience of being sexually assaulted at school. Kansas Reflector doesn’t identify minors who have been sexually assaulted.
According to an incident report filed by Sanoja, the former student was a freshman and alone in the Wyandotte High School stairwell when a group of older boys groped her and made sexual remarks. She began recording the boys with her phone, which prompted them to leave, the report said.
Sanoja was off duty that day. The former student asked the on-duty officer to file a report, which Sanoja says she never saw. The day after, Sanoja and the former student said they filed an incident, criminal, and Title IX report. The former student wanted to press charges.
“After that, I just stopped going to school, because I didn’t feel safe,” the former student said in an interview with Kansas Reflector.
Sanoja said security camera footage and the former student’s video showed the boys’ faces. The former student said the district told her that because the boys never returned to school, it could not suspend them. However, the former student said she continued to see the boys on campus.
“Ultimately, the district didn’t do anything about it. We were asking, at least, for suspension. That didn’t happen,” Sanoja said.
A spokesperson from the district told Kansas Reflector it was unable to provide comment on the former student’s case, or the district’s responsibility to handle reports of sexual assault.
Sanoja publicly resigned with a letter that accused the district of failing to communicate with parents. She wrote that she was worried about instances where students brought guns to school property and all parents weren’t notified.
In a response video to Sanoja’s resignation, district superintendent Anna Stubblefield said “those incidents are not always relayed to all families. Not because we’re hiding anything, but because the impact is low and to protect the privacy of our students.”
A district spokesperson told Kansas Reflector the “administration is required to contact parents regarding student issues — such as absences, drug-related concerns, or fights — in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct.”
Expert opinions
Ken Trump, an expert in school safety communications who is not related to the president, said parental anxiety over school safety is rising nationwide.
“It’s very easy to get caught up if you’ve got a couple thousand kids in a school, dealing with incidents and other things. But you need to take a tactical pause in this, and go back to looking at the communications,” Trump said. “You can’t go back to the old-school mindset of if someone finds out about it we’ll talk. That doesn’t work anymore.”
Sanoja said that after a student overdosed at school and she contacted the parents directly, the high school principal told Sanoja to route all communication with parents through administration.
Sanoja said that she continues to receive videos of physical fights in the schools, totaling in the hundreds, since her resignation.
Michael Dorn, a school safety expert who assists schools after major acts of violence, said Sanoja’s allegations were concerning. He said he would have responded to her concerns differently than the school district did.
“I was a school district police chief for 10 years,” Dorn said. “If an officer in my department wrote that kind of resignation letter, I would request a state police investigation. I would ask for a polygraph test, and I would ask that she be polygraphed. I wouldn’t do anything like that, but if someone alleged that I did and I didn’t do it, I would request that to clear my name.”
Sanoja worked as a police officer in Lenexa before transitioning to the school district and said Wyandotte High School presented the most significant challenges she’s seen. She believes the problems are “within the culture” of the school.
“Everybody’s tired of the way the district is handling things,” Sanoja said. “They’ve been failing these kids for years.”
Fixing root causes
Through her nonprofit, Sanoja helps students who leave the district, like the former student who was sexually assaulted, earn their GED certificate.
When they’re out of the school environment, Sanoja said, they thrive.
Sanoja said most of the families she works with are immigrants, and the parents do not speak English.
“We face the daunting task of ending the stigma, shame and judgement that come with our culture,” Sanoja said.
Missión Despegue seeks to fix the root causes of the problems seen in school — like substance abuse, violence, bullying, and mental health issues. Sanoja said she sees these problems reflected in things like the graduation rate of the district. For the 2023-2024 school year it was 78.1%, which is 11.4 percentage points lower than the state average.
Through donations, Sanoja covers the cost of mental health appointments, DMV license and GED class registrations, and laptop purchases for students pursuing their GED certificate without one. In February, she began converting first-time offenders’ court fees, in hopes of reducing recidivism.
With the help of more than 100 volunteers, Sanoja has hosted events where she provides Narcan and educates parents about the dangers of substance abuse. She also guides volunteers to further training, like drug prevention and compassion fatigue workshops.
Sanoja said she doesn’t get paid for her work with Missión Despegue. She said she needs an assistant, because she has “a long list of people that need help.”
“I see something in them. I know they’re going to be successful,” Sanoja said. “I want that opportunity for every kid I have.”
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: [email protected].
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