Defend Northwestern High School Students

From the Defend Northwestern Facebook page:

Thursday, March 1st was a National Student Day of Action in which students around the country organized demonstrations protesting education budget cuts, educational inequality, and advocating for quality and affordable education for all.

Students at Northwestern High School in Prince George’s County Maryland planned a walkout and rally as part of the National Student Day of Action. Over 300 students planned to walk out to protest unsanitary conditions in their school, enormous class sizes, cuts to the ESOL program, and denial of promised pay raises for their teachers. The students also were asking for more teacher/parent/student input in the curriculum and demanding an apology for a group of Filipino teachers who were fired and deported after not having their work visas renewed.

The Administration at Northwestern discovered the walkout plan early in the day by trolling Twitter and put the school on lockdown. Police blocked the doors and canine units waited in the school's parking lot. They held student leaders in the Principal’s office all day, threatened them with expulsion, and at the end of the day suspended four students for 5 days requiring that when they return their parents must accompany them to classes all day.

Northwestern is a high school where a majority of the students are Black and Latino. The student organizers' mission was to walk out for a better school and a better education. Instead the Administration violated their civil liberties, squashed these students' free speech, and punished them for wanting to improve the school environment for themselves and their teachers. Instead of having a dialogue with students, the Administration at this school chose to make an example of several students and punish them harshly knowing this could affect these students ability to get into college.

Due to public backlash, the school's administration has called a forum next Monday at 5 pm at the school site to discuss their handling of the situation and community concerns. Please come and support your fellow students.

For more information, please contact studentsforjustice1@gmail.com.

March to the DOE

Last Thursday's march was a success. Over 100 students and former students joined together at McPherson Square to protest growing concerns over our nation's educational infrastructure. Many issues, from the student debt crisis to the unequal funding in public primary and secondary schools.

After protesting at Sallie Mae, students headed to the Department of Education and presented their list of demands to Tim Tuten, the director of events in the Office of Communications and Outreach, who promised to voice our concerns directly to Arne Duncan, who would deliver a response by March 9th.

Since last Tuesday, the Dept. of Education, in conjunction with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have rolled out a streamlined process to cover complaints about privatized student loans, in conjunction with our third plank.

Media attention on the issue of student debt also dramatically increased, both on a local and national level.

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DC Indymedia and TheFightBack have some excellent coverage about what happened on the DC march and why holistic educational reform is so important. A video of the march here.

Occupy DC protester Sara Shaw's livetweets (@sara_jeans) and a picture of the DC protest were used in the Huffington Post as part of an article on the nationwide actions.