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.

I'm so proud of you ALL!!!!

Good for you,
taking to the streets and making the world notice our people as a people with dignity and rights!


Well done student marchers!

YOU DID US PROUD.

i also work at a high school outside of Washington DC where students organized through myspace postings to walk out of school. amazingly, they pulled it off and are planning for a more organized walk out on friday.

after being seen encouraging the students at the infancy of their walkout, i was talked to by the administrators that as a staff member i cannot give one opinon over another, meaning, i can't walk out.

but what came of it that day was amazing, where i encouraged students in my class to take a position and decide whether or not to walk out after we had a discussion of hr4437, its implications, and about the myths that we must dispell about undocumented immigrants. students engaged and challenged each other in dialogue, a much lost art in today's classrooms.

im so excited to see students taking a position and standing firm on their beliefs. this is where true learning occurs.

i walked for 2 hours from john marshall high, on monday, to city hall...........the vib was warm and we felt we were getting our message across the locals...........

We want to know when all of these walkouts will finish? We would like to walkout with you in a helpful way to show that immigrants are innocent and that they shouldn't go to jail because they walked out. We want no more foolishness from the police and sheriffs. We have the rights to walkout and the police shouldn't arrest people that are walking out.

We would like to hear more from you, so please write back. Thank you for walking out for our rights.

Sincerely,
Room 19 and Mr. Banes

Im from Idaho and one day we had a protest at our capitol i only saw 1 from every 8 flags were mexican flags the rest were americns the were holding up signs to put admistia i heard that a lot of kids from bigger citys walked out for a few days that was the topic on the tv