A peaceful protest against the North Kitsap School District’s treatment of sexual abuse cases is planned for 1 p.m. Saturday at the corner of Highway 104 and Miller Bay Road in Kingston.

The protest is called Stand with Survivors against NKSD and is being put on by the Student Coalition Against Sexual Abuse, a group of students based in Kitsap County fighting for accountability for “predators and policy against sex crime,” its mission statement reads.

Kingston High School freshman Katie Zehrung says in an email Tuesday that KHS students held a walkout protest Sept. 24 during lunch periods addressing sexual assault and the “lack of response from our teachers and staff to rape and (sexual assault) allegations.” She said there was another protest Sept. 26 in downtown Poulsbo where Kingtson, North Kitsap and Bremerton students gathered on the sidewalks.

“I personally attended both protests, where students held signs and felt brave enough to tell their stories,” Zehrung said. “Tears were shed, hugs were exchanged between friends and stranger students. It was a moment where we had a voice, we had power, in a sad and beautiful way.”

“As a student, I’m familiar with the need to feel important and validated,” she continued. “The victims in my school district know this feeling too; they have been neglected by their authoritative figures.”

A petition called “Hold Rapists in NKSD Accountable” on change.org states that schools in the district have “repeatedly swept cases of rape and sexual assault under the rug. For years…the staff at NKHS and KHS have looked the other way when a student is crying for help.”

The petition goes on to state that over 20 people have come forward in the last week saying how their school has “silenced them for years.”

“These rapists and assaulters have been getting away with this for years, some since they were 12 years old,” the petition reads. “These are your daughters and your sons; your children who are crying for help. We do not feel safe in a school where rapists get to roam free. We — students and parents of NKSD — demand investigations into these rapists. We demand change in our schools, we demand that we have the right to go to school every day and feel safe.”

Similar protests took place 1 1/2 years ago in the Bainbridge Island School District on the same topic.