Attack on Stanislaus middle-schooler follows years of bullying, family says

Years of alleged relentless bullying erupted into violence when a Patterson seventh-grader was physically assaulted by a schoolmate during lunch period Sept. 18.

Calaya Hawkins, who was suspended from Creekside Middle School along with her alleged attacker, said the incident began with the student pouring water on her, then following and yelling at her.

A friend of the student began taking video of the incident and encouraged her friend to “beat that ass” and “pop her,” and a crowd began to form around Calaya and the other student.

The student confronting Calaya used the weight of Calaya’s backpack to push her onto the ground and then struck her head multiple times, stomped on her torso and spat on her, shows the video shared with The Bee. Calaya was beaten for 30 seconds until someone pulled off the other student after she spat on Calaya.

Creekside students took to social media to search for and talk about the video of Calaya’s assault. Calaya was diagnosed with a rib contusion following the assault, her family said. The Bee decided not to publish the video of the assault because it was taped to humiliate a minor with violence and was made without her consent.

The day before the assault, at least three students, including the one who ultimately assaulted Calaya, were reprimanded by a yard duty who caught them following her. “They saw me, and they was like, ‘You want to fight?’ I told her no, and they would just follow me around,” Calaya said. “But the security guard had stopped it.”

Initially, the school suspended both the student who committed the assault and Calaya. However, after Calaya’s adult brother, Jazhun Brown, emailed the video of the assault to the Patterson Joint Unified School District, Superintendent Reyes Gauna investigated and lifted Calaya’s suspension.

In a voicemail to Calaya’s mother that was provided to the Bee, Creekside Middle School Assistant Principal Aaron Howard said, “Calaya was involved in a fight today. Apparently, from what we understand, she made statements threatening towards the other student yesterday, and the other student approached her and fought her today.” After making the determination that the incident was a fight rather than an assault, the school suspended Calaya.

Gauna said the school initially informed him only that a fight had occurred on campus, and he was not familiar with the details of the incident.

“[The school] had told me there was a fight. That’s the thing. I didn’t know that there was a video … we have student altercations all the time. I don’t know about them all the time, but when a specific family member emails me that they’re very concerned, and yes, it does prompt a concern,” the superintendent said. “I found out that she was suspended. And I said, why? The response that was given to me did not justify a suspension. So, as a superintendent, I removed the suspension.”

The assault was the culmination of at least three years of bullying Calaya has faced across Northmead Elementary School, Apricot Valley Elementary School and Creekside Middle School, she and her family say.

“I never seen so much racism and hatred and discrimination in my life,” said Clarence Hawkins, Lanisha’s husband and Calaya’s dad. “We grew up in the Bay Area. It’s probably out there, too, but it’s very little, so you don’t see it. But here it’s just, I go in the office a couple times to pick her up from school, and they treat me like, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ They don’t treat me as if I’m a parent coming here to pick my child up.”

Though Calaya’s suspension was lifted, Lanisha Hawkins decided to withdraw her daughter from Patterson Joint Unified after the assault, lacking faith in the district’s ability to keep Calaya safe.

“You’re not keeping me safe, y’all not keeping me comfortable. You’re not doing anything about it. It’s just going on and on and on,” Calaya said. “You’re not doing anything about it anymore. You’re just letting it go and go and slide and slide, and it’s just getting worse and worser. It’s not not doing anything about it, and it’s not helping.”

Lanisha Hawkins added that some of the students who have been bullying Calaya at Creekside are the same ones who bullied her in her two previous elementary schools in the Patterson district. In the three years of bullying, Calaya said she has been bullied for being Black and having a learning disability.

She said she has been called the n-slur, the r-slur, a black monkey and a bitch multiple times, and told “Why are you Black? You should be in Africa, not in California, because California is made for Mexicans.”

Lanisha Hawkins said Calaya was also told “to go back to India. She’s a monkey,” by one of her bullies.

According to the superintendent, the investigation thus far hasn’t found evidence indicating the Sept. 18 assault was racially motivated.

Earlier this month, Calaya said she was kicked in the genitals by another student who also has regularly bullied her. At a different point, she was told by a student to “just die and go to hell.” These incidents occurred within the first two months of Calaya’s time at Creekside.

According to Calaya’s parents, the schools she attended in the Patterson district largely only looked to separate her in the classroom from students bullying her, and the measure was insufficient.

After she was kicked earlier this month, her brother, Brown, emailed Gauna, Board of Trustees member Kieran Carter and others about the bullying Calaya has faced, asking them to take action.

“When she was kicked two weeks ago, I can honestly say that’s when I went from being her third line of defense advocate to putting myself just at the driver’s seat and making sure that I fight for her with my voice, with my words,” Brown wrote. “I won’t always be there to protect her. My mom won’t, my dad won’t, so we have to just make sure we’re there for her at the other stages when she’s learning so she has everything when she gets older.”

He didn’t receive a response from the district until he re-sent his email after the second and most recent assault.

Calaya said in an interview at her home, “It’s been hard doing my work, trying to get focused, trying to be focused. I can’t concentrate.”

In November 2023, while she was at Northmead, a student put a note in Calaya’s backpack that her mother later found. The student drew Calaya and labeled her “furry.” Text around the drawing says “look like s---,” “I pee and s---,” and more.

Following that incident, Lanisha Hawkins notified the district and asked for Calaya to be transferred to Apricot, where she continued to face bullying. According to Lanisha, Calaya was threatened by a fellow student, who said he would shoot and kill her at Apricot.

Her mother said she confronted the Apricot principal on campus. “I’m like, ‘Hello. You’re not gonna do nothing about this little boy threatening to shoot and kill my daughter?’ His response, ‘You have to set up a meeting.’”

Late last week, Lanisha and Clarence Hawkins met with Gauna to discuss the assault and bullying Calaya has faced. It was the first time the parents were able to meet with him, they said, despite multiple conversations with district Director of Child Welfare and Attendance Sandra Villaseñor

Despite many email and voicemail conversations between the Hawkinses and Creekside Middle School and the district, Gauna said he did not know about the continued bullying of Calaya until his meeting last week with Calaya’s parents. He is conducting an investigation into several instances of Calaya being bullied and how the schools responded to the child and her family’s multiple reports.

“I couldn’t speak to the continued bullying, only because I just became familiar with the case. I do know when we met with the family, they spoke of all of these different situations,” Gauna said. “We are definitely looking into it.”

This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 5:00 AM.