When District 218 Superintendent Josh Barron learned students planned to leave the three high schools he oversees in protest of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, he said he had grave concerns surrounding safety.
“There’s been a lot more protesting in recent years, and it is a disruption to the school day,” Barron said. “It’s a tough situation to be in as school staff, because you’ve got some kids leaving and some kids staying at school. You’ve got to keep your kids at school safe too.”
A month after that walkout, Barron said the district hopes to be better prepared if a rumored walkout takes place May 1, especially considering some of its schools are near busy intersections. That includes taking a hard look at how the district disciplines students who participate.
“You’re constantly — as I say — keep your head on a swivel and react to the situation and do the best you can to keep the kids safe. But once they leave campus, we’re not responsible for them, we can’t be.”
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District 218 students who missed classes due to their participation in the walkout received unexcused absences for those classes. Unexcused absences may lead to disciplinary action such as detention, loss of credit for assignments missed while absent and a class or classes being dropped, according to the district’s code of conduct.
“It could have resulted in a detention or suspension if this was a student that was cutting class on a regular basis,” Barron said. “It was treated like any class cut.”
Similar walkouts took place at other south and southwest suburban districts including Homewood-Flossmoor High School, although students did not leave the high school’s campus as they did in District 218.
A spokesperson for Homewood-Flossmoor District 233 said in an emailed statement students who participated in a similar walkout event last month outside of its high school were marked absent, but the district “did not impose additional disciplinary action on students who participated.”
“While the administration cannot condone a walkout at school, we support individuals’ right to express themselves and work to ensure that all students are safe and respected,” the spokesperson said.
H-F student Chelsea Lloyd, 18, said she and other students who took part in the walkout felt supported by their administrators, and she didn’t know of anybody serving detention or being suspended for participating.
“I wanted to go because I feel like we all should be able to stick together,” Lloyd said. “A lot of the kids in my class, our grade, we’ve been going to school with each other for a long time. So it’s like, why are we not sticking up for each other?”
The protest was organized by a group of seniors, and students who participated were met with security who held a barricade to keep students from leaving the school’s grounds.
Barron said between 100 and 200 students at each Shepard High School in Palos Heights and Richards High School in Oak Lawn participated in the walkout while between 200 and 300 students at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island participated.
Eisenhower High School Principal Benjamin Blakely said in a March 17 email that none of his students faced consequences for taking part, but some were issued “leaving school grounds” document and a phone call home.
Barron said he was unaware how many District 218 students were disciplined as a direct result of participating in the walkouts. The district sent a message to families Feb. 26 saying students who participated in the walkout would not be allowed to re-enter the building for the rest of the school day and would lose bus privileges.
The message encouraged students “to explore ways to advocate for their beliefs that don’t disrupt their education,” including writing letters to elected officials, joining community forums or events outside of school hours, and engaging in respectful classroom discussions.
The code of conduct does not specify the number of unexcused absences a student can have on record before they receive detention or are suspended, but it says students who miss three or more classes in one day may be referred to a district disciplinarian. A student who misses an entire class period or arrives to class more than 10 minutes late is considered unexcused unless the teacher or dean receives a pass accounting for the student’s whereabouts.
A spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, Ed Yohnka, said the organization encourages schools to keep in mind students’ rights to free speech when deciding how to discipline them for missing school.
He said the organization hopes schools “would factor in the fact the student is engaging in First Amendment activity, and whatever the discipline might be, it might be at the lowest level that they can do.”
“I think that’s a place where the school has a little bit of an opportunity to engage in a conversation with students about what they’re trying to accomplish,” Yohnka said. “Those are conversations that feel like an appropriate thing in an educational institution where part of what you’re trying to do is give students that opportunity to learn how to exercise their rights and what their role is in a free society.”