Students hold walkout, football season canceled amid sexual contact allegations at Fort Vancouver HS

VANCOUVER, Wash. (KPTV) - More than 100 students participated in a walkout at Fort Vancouver High School Thursday, calling for more transparency from the school regarding allegations of sexual contact involving the varsity football team.

Much of the backlash stems from how the allegations were communicated by the school to families.

On Tuesday, the high school announced that the remainder of the varsity football games this season were canceled.

In a message to the FVHS community, Principal Luis A. Castro-Quintanilla said the cancellation was “due to a combination of injuries and player availability.”

On Thursday, Castro-Quintanilla sent out an update to provide “some additional context” about the decision to cancel games.

In the same text, he revealed that the school became aware last week of “serious allegations of inappropriate behavior involving members of our varsity football team.”

The statement says in part:

“Dear Fort Vancouver families and staff,

We want to follow up on our recent message about the cancellation of our remaining varsity football games and provide some additional context about that decision.

Last week, we became aware of serious allegations of inappropriate behavior involving members of our varsity football team. We immediately reported these concerns to law enforcement, began our own internal investigation, and put safety measures in place to protect those who reported the incident.

As we previously shared, the decision to cancel the remainder of the varsity football season was due to a combination of injuries and player availability. At the time of that message, we were still in the early stages of working with law enforcement and determining the appropriate next steps in our investigation…”

According to Castro-Quintanilla, the school launched an internal investigation and also brought in an independent investigator to look into the allegations.

“I think that we can’t stop everything from happening. In this situation, it would have been nice to at least have right after the incident, an e-mail go out to the parents, letting them know this happened,” said Ami Murdock, a Fort Vancouver parent.

The Vancouver Police Department is investigating as well. A spokesperson said the department received reports from school security personnel about “possible sexual contact between students in a locker room.”

Due to privacy laws and the involvement of students, the school says it cannot release further details of the case at this time.

“We understand how concerning allegations of this nature are for our school community. Student safety and well-being remain our highest priority, and we take these reports very seriously,” the principal said in his Thursday message.