At least one USD 257 board member registered her discomfort with the student-led walkout at Iola High School earlier this month. The protest, billed as a rally intended to draw attention to the subject of school safety, was organized in reaction to Februarys school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
[The walkout] was perceived as political by a lot of people and it was perceived as being very supported by our administrators, said board member Jennifer Coltrane, and I just didnt really think that that was appropriate for what were here for.
Not to minimize [the shooting] lives were lost but I dont know that it needs to be something kids walk out of school for.
Fellow board member Doug Dunlap claimed to see Coltranes point, but approached the question of pedagogy from an opposite angle. We are in the business of education, he said. Having given [students] the experience of what it is like to participate in a walkout and a protest of some sort isnt necessarily 100 percent bad.
Superintendent of Schools Stacey Fager explained that the Kansas Association of School Boards had not been explicit in its direction to districts facing the prospect of a school walkout. It is a constitutional right to organize, said Fager, and so the only direction [KASB] was willing to offer was to remind districts that their actions would be setting a precedent for similar events in the future, and, because of that, districts should remain consistent in the application of their policies surrounding protest.
So if someone wanted to have a walkout to honor lives lost in 9/11, and protest airplanes… as a group were responsible for that? asked Coltrane. There are a lot of things you could protest. You could protest abortion…or alcohol…. I just think that youre setting a precedent, and you have to be careful about what that looks like in the future.
DESPITE the disagreement, the tone of the debate remained friendly.
Board member Nancy Toland, who reminded members that an April 20 walkout to mark the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre is taking shape at the national level, addressed Coltranes prior point. Since this is a school district and what the walkout was for was to talk about safe schools and to honor the memory of the students and the teachers who were lost, and if this upcoming one is also school-related, then I see where there is a point to the walkout as long as we keep it educationally sound.
Although Coltranes original complaint was the perceived collaboration of the administration in the school walkout, she wasnt dissuaded from her grievance by the reminder that the event was entirely student-led.
I dont think we can just allow a student-led thing every month where they just walk out of school, said Coltrane. We cant let that become a habit. They have a lot of time after school, before school, anytime, to politically protest.
Board member Mary Apt keyed in on a more nuanced aspect of the debate by pointing out that the original intentions of the protest were partly contorted by being dragged into the more fractious debate around gun control. It kind of went in a direction in which we cant control, said Apt. We were then being associated with that particular protest, and I dont know how you handle that.
Fager had the final word on the topic. I havent seen very many things in 25 years of education where [there was] an event during the day that students so wanted to do. My idea of the whole event was that this would not be encouraged [but neither would we] tell the students not to do it. It would be allowed to happen if they so chose. Rarely have I seen something that has been so well organized by the students. Im not supportive of it and Im not against it; Im just saying that, with what our students did, I think they felt a need to do this for their own personal reasons. Maybe not all of the students shared that feeling, but I think the ones that were there, by and large, had their own personal reasons for doing what they did. I dont think it was in service to some bigger political or propaganda [ idea] . I think it was more personal. And, for that, I feel really good about our students here in USD 257.
BUT IT WAS TWO
staple items affecting the future of the Bowlus Fine Arts Center that received top billing at Mondays meeting.
And it was Bowlus Commission member Patti Boyd who lent voice to both.
