Students Suspended For Organizing Occupy Protest.

When these students tried to stand together they ended up being punished for it. This is another reason that I will never send my daughter to public schools.

www.washingtonpost.com...

One week, Shane James, an honor roll student at Northwestern High School in Prince George’s County, was lauded for his political activism.The next, he was removed from classes for attempting to effect change. Northwestern Principal Edgar Batenga suspended James, 16, and three other students on March 1 for organizing a walkout to increase teacher pay, improve the quality of education and demand an apology to Filipino teachers who will lose their jobs because their visas will expire.

These kids were just trying to bring awareness to the condition of our school systems that are failing, they were not rioting or inciting violence.

Batenga said he made his decision to suspend the students based on the school system’s policies and procedures, which allow him to suspend for “inciting others to disturbance and/or violence.”

The school hosted a forum Monday evening to discuss the walkout and the principal’s response.

“They said they were concerned about riots and people’s health and safety,” Mitiuriev said. “This wasn’t Occupy London. It’s not Egypt, where people are throwing rocks at the military.”

This is where the kids got the idea. I wonder how many other schools had simalar instances.

Occupy Education — a coalition of Occupy, labor and community groups — designated March 1 as the National Student Day of Action. Students across the country tailored their demonstrations to address specific issues affecting their schools.

But at least some kids think that they accomplished something.

And even though the protest did not happen as planned, he said, “Project Fail” — which is what some students are now calling the walkout — achieved what it set out to do. “The goal of the walkout was to politicize the community and to start a dialogue,” he said. “I think it was a success. The community is engaged, not just about the response, but about the issues that we brought up.”

I have a feeling we are going to see more instances like this happening as well.

One thing that I will say about this is that the kids should also learn consequence. C'mon man, it's the story of life. If you stand up for what you believe, you're SUPPOSED to face opposition! Watch a movie...that's what happens. The kids probably wouldn't have had it any other way, and their "punishment" (i.e. you and all your best friends are "not allowed" to go to school for a week and you've made the news and the whole town is talking about you) will probably only inspire them towards greater heights of civil disobedience. All things happen as they should.

reply to post by BBobb


Yeah, but the school should show them a little support. Instead of making it a negative thing and suspending them, they could have just cancelled the last period and had an assembly to discuss the matter. I think a solution like that would have been better for both sides.

reply to post by usmc0311


Their Visas will expire? This is obviously an immigration issue being politicized. When has the US Immigration and Customs ever been obligated to continue foreign national's visas after they expire? And then they were protesting health and safety. Sounds like more confusion as to the purpose of their protests.

This is just the teachers union at work, students walking out to improve teachers pay was a dead give away. The teachers union is just trying to hijack OWS for their own needs.

This kid had the right idea, but it bothers me that outside forces such as labor and teachers groups had to be involved.

If this was a movement from within the student body alone, the political statement would have been powerful. Add labor/teachers groups and you have turned it into a biased political statement.

Still crap that he had to be suspended for exercising his rights.

I just stumbled upon this video and then did an ATS search to see if there was anything posted.

I would start a new thread since the current title doesn't represent what I feel is the most glaring issue, since it wasn't in the original story.
The school had Police with attack dogs waiting outside and officers were barring the doors, effectively imprisoning the students inside the school.
Also another very interesting point to note is the 4 boys who were punished (allegedly not even involved) were suspend for "Thought Crimes".

It's a scary situation when authorities start using things like "Thought Crimes" to justify punishing subordinates.
We're moving into Minority Report like policing here.

reply to post by Pumcy


Yeah, that is a big development. I had heard nothing of the police. The article I read said no police were involved. I think this would get more attention if you created a new thread about it with the new details as the main focus as this really should be discussed.