my experience substitute teaching during the walk outs

On Friday I was subbing at Southgate High. During 2nd period the school administrators announced that we were going to be having a lockdown. They did not tell us why, but I found out from some of my students that HP High had walked out and that the students from HP that walked out were trying to come over to Southgate to encourage more students to walk out.

(During a lockdown the teachers have to lock their doors and are not allowed to let any students out of the classroom, even to go to the restroom. If a student tries to leave campus, I heard that they chase after them and punish them somehow by either giving them tickets for truancy which I think are about $250, taking away their priviledges like prom and graduation, and/or suspending them.) I am not sure how many were successful in leaving Southgate before the lockdown but I think it was pretty effective in keeping the students in.

Many of my students showed interest in walking out, but they were intimidated by the threat of punishment by the school. I have heard that the anti-immigration law passed through the house of reps and on to the senate and that the law has three parts: 1) they want to make being an illegal immigrant a felony 2)they want to build a fence on the border 3)they want to put anyone in jail who does not report someone who is an illegal immigrant.

Today I was subbing at Jefferson High and the school adminstrators there were much more lax with the students walking out. They let many of them walk out and locked the door on some of them. However, they may be punished upon their return to school tomorrow.

I just watched the channel 2 news and they said 26,000 students walked out and that every middle school and high school in LAUSD is going to be on lockdown tomorrow.

I heard from my housemate that all the students from different schools met downtown and some of them actually managed to block the freeway!! I was attempting to drive through downtown this afternoon and saw some people protesting and a lot of cops. I heard that many students are communicating through flyering and through my space.

I went to the protest downtown on Saturday and it was the biggest protest I have ever been to. I was surprised to see that many people were holding American flags. In fact, more people seemed to have American flags than Mexican flags. I talked to my mother today and she said that she saw footage of people at the protest burning American flags and putting up Mexican flags in their place. I did not see that, but apparently that is what the mainstream news media focused on.
I hope that tomorrow's lockdown of all LAUSD middle schools and high schools does not quell this amazing revoultionary spirit. Surely, some students may not know what is going on exactly and may just walk out because they don't want to be in school, but I think many of them actually do know what is going on and are very passionate about it. Afterall this issue literally hits home for many of them.

On the channel 2 News Mayor Villagroisa was encouraging students to go back to school, to not walk out, but I disagree with him. I think the walk out are likely to be much more educational then sitting in a classroom, especially if that classroom has no books and/or no regular teacher as many classrooms in LAUSD do.

The news also said that the senate decided against making illegal immigrants felons. I wonder if the walk outs and the protest had an effect on this decision. I'm sure that they did.