Students, parents and staff outraged over St. Vincent de Paul High School principal’s sudden departure

Students and faculty members walked out of St. Vincent de Paul High School in Petaluma on Monday morning after receiving an email Sunday night that Principal Patrick Daly would no longer be working at the school.

At around 9:20 p.m. Sunday, students and parents received an email stating Daly would be “no longer serving as principal of our high school” from the Rev. Bill Donahue, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Petaluma.

“I will serve as interim principal for day-to-day administrative matters, effective immediately, until a suitable candidate can be found,” Donahue said in the email.

Daly, who ran the private Catholic school for six years, was considered by some to be a beloved presence at St. Vincent High. On Monday both students and parents used terms like “father figure,” “the ultimate leader” and “champion of diversity” to describe him.

No explanation for the sudden departure was provided by school leadership. Staff were instructed not to speak to the media on the matter, and a school spokesperson declined to comment. Donahue did not respond to requests for comment.

In his letter to parents, Donahue wrote, “Though it is perhaps too much to ask of human nature, I ask that you refrain from speculating on this development.”

The school of about 200 students is partnered with the St. Vincent de Paul Elementary School in Petaluma, which is overseen by the Diocese of Santa Rosa. Messages to the diocese were left unreturned.

School administrators met with students on Monday morning to discuss the change, students said, and then they, along with school staff, walked to St. Vincent de Paul Church, located a few blocks away in downtown Petaluma.

There, dozens of students – some wearing shirts with “Free Daly” written on them – along with parents and staff stood in front of the towering Catholic church, expressing their dismay at the sudden change.

“As for student transparency, we've been given everything but transparency. Students don't have any information. Faculty doesn't have any information to share with us and we don't understand why our principal, who has been the backbone of our community, has just abruptly left,” said Ava Sullivan, 17, ASB student president and senior.

During the walkout, students and parents lauded Daly as a leader who cared deeply for students and who had made significant improvements to the school’s culture since he started in 2017.

However, Daly’s leadership came under question by staff and community members three years ago. In July 2020, he was the only Catholic school leader to participate in a “school reopening forum” with President Donald Trump.

A month later, the school was engulfed in controversy after two Black staff members were fired, resulting in condemnation, accusations of racism and angry protests.

In August of that year, Daly and Donahue posted an open letter in response to the controversies, saying the firings were a “budgetary necessity,” and that “There was no intention to align the school or any of its staff or students with any national political figure or party.”

Before his role at St. Vincent, Daly worked at a number of other Catholic schools. He was a teacher and coach at Cardinal Newman, then athletic director at Marin Catholic. Daly was the president and principal of St. Bernard's Academy in Eureka until 2017, when he came to Petaluma.

Daly’s leadership has always included a strong focus on athletics – with some critics saying that focus is too strong, to the exclusion of other programs.

On Monday, several parents stood alongside their children in support of Daly and demanding answers.

“I feel like the diocese is trying to shut down the school and they are hurting a lot of people, a lot of families, a lot of students because they're not being transparent about their children,” said Robert Rooks, who has two children at St. Vincent High School and one who recently graduated.

Rooks, a former member of the school’s board of regents, said he relocated from Sacramento to Sonoma County to ensure his students could attend St. Vincent.

“There's no way that you could take someone like Principal Daly out of the school and not have complete devastation of the students. So they know that and they knew that. And it’s unfortunate they're not being honest with us,” he said.

Within a few hours after the walkout, former students had already set up an online petition demanding that Daly be reinstated. As of press time Wednesday, the petition had 700 signatures.