Parents, Activists Rip School Board
Officials Overreacted To Protest, They Say
Anti-war and free-speech advocates joined angry parents and students in their battle with Berwyn school district officials who may expel a group of students who took part in an Iraq war protest at a school last week.
The lunchtime protest Nov. 1 in the Morton West High School cafeteria was viewed as a peaceful sit-in by students, but school officials charged two dozen of them with “gross disobedience and mob activity,” which call for suspensions and possible expulsions.
The activists joined parents, students and teachers at a District 201 meeting Wednesday, during which board members were implored to reconsider the punishments.
“You are really courageous. I’m proud of what you did,” Kaitlin McIntyre, a member of an anti-war group at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told students at the meeting. “The incident has gained international attention, and the world is behind you.”
The school board chose to postpone a decision on the expulsions, drawing boos from the crowd.
“We need an answer tonight,” said Rita Maniotis, president of the Parent Teacher Organization. “These kids need to go back to school.”
District spokesman Dan Proft said that if board members decide to “move forward” on deciding the expulsions, they likely will call a special meeting next week. The next scheduled meeting is Dec. 5. Although the suspensions began Nov. 2, Proft said suspensions not yet served could be handled “in-house,” extended or dropped.
Parents and students say that penalties were too harsh — and unfairly dispensed — for some of those involved in the protest. More than a dozen parents at the meeting in the Morton East auditorium told the board that students who play varsity athletics or have a high grade point average were given less stringent penalties.
Maniotis said her daughter Barbara, a junior at the high school, participated in the protest but was given a 5-day suspension and does not face expulsion because she is an honor student with a 4.5 GPA. Other students received 10-day suspensions with the possibility of expulsion.
“She did the same thing they did,” Maniotis said. “This entire incident is outrageous. The school missed out on a wonderful teachable moment. Instead, they cracked down on them right away and turned it into a punitive situation.”
Parents have said they want their children reinstated and the penalties removed from their records.
Some parents got emotional, telling board members how proud they are of their children for taking a stand and protesting. “I love you so much,” said one mother, in tears, to her daughter.
District 201 Supt. Ben Nowakowski started reading a statement, which drew boos. Board President Jeffry Pesek told the audience not to be disrespectful to Nowakowski and said the meeting would be held up if they continued to yell.
Nowakowski said the disciplinary actions were taken because the students disrupted the educational process.
“The cafeteria was required to be shut down, and students were held in their classrooms, causing a major disturbance to the school day,” he read. “Protesting in the cafeteria rather than outside the school created an environment in the cafeteria which could have caused harm to many people. It is the responsibility of the district to correct inappropriate behavior … to preserve a peaceful and educational environment. The students are subject to the disciplinary process based on their individual roles.”
Pesek said in a statement that the board will wait to make comments on the issue until an investigation is completed. “The primary goal of this board of education shall remain with the safety of the students and the offering of an appropriate and quality high school education,” he said.
Morton West High School teacher Gale Holmlund told board members that her classroom and others at the school were not disrupted by the protest.
“Yes, they should have consequences,” she said. “They did cut class. Maybe they should get a detention, a parent call or a five-day or 10-day suspension, but to give them an expulsion is not fair.”
Some students said officials had told them that if they moved the protest from the cafeteria to another area, which they did, they would face only Saturday detention. Nowakowski said that school officials did tell students they would be spared disciplinary action if they moved but that some students locked arms and refused to move.
“We weren’t violent in any way,” said Jonathon Acevedo, a student who faces expulsion. “We were holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ and the song ‘Give Peace a Chance.’”
Acevedo’s aunt Gladys Hansen-Guerra said her nephew, a musician, is being singled out because he’s an average student and a Latino. “The administration is giving harder punishments to students who won’t tell them who organized the protest,” Hansen-Guerra said. “It was a group effort. They are trying to offer leniency to those who point out the organizers. This isn’t a fascist state. [School officials] aren’t the CIA. These are 16-year-old kids.”
Representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, an anti-war group from Northeastern Illinois University and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War attended the meeting. They praised the students for their actions and said they are protected by their 1st Amendment rights.
Disabled Gulf War veteran Cesar Ruvalcaba, dressed in his military uniform, chose to lash out at military recruiters allowed to roam the halls of the school.
“Shame on the administrators who think receiving military money from recruiters is more important than the education of their students,” he told the board. “I am 100 percent disabled, and I learned the hard way that education, not carrying a machine gun, is the key to success. It’s those people who are pro-war who would never drop everything and go fight for the red, white and blue. These kids should receive extra credit for speaking up, not expulsion.”
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
We’re grooming this next generation to wholly and unconditionally accept and support the authoritarian state.
Seig Heil! Seig Heil! Seig Heil!
mastershake, are you refering to kids in elementry today or my generation of teens? (I’m 18, by the way and in my senoir year.)
If it were a pro war demonstration what would the board have done?
“This isn’t a fascist state. [School officials] aren’t the CIA. These are 16-year-old kids”
I wouldn’t be so sure about this…
mastershake, are you refering to kids in elementry today or my generation of teens? (I’m 18, by the way and in my senoir year.)
More of the younger elemntary generation. I’m 24 over here.
If it was a prowar demo they’d have called the army for recruitment papers of course. Needless to say such a demo is quite unlikely these days.
How about this: Whatever the worst suspension is, all of the school’s students and teachers should stay out of school for that duration. So if a kid gets suspended for 2 weeks, everyone stay home for 2 weeks - maybe not the most practical for teachers, who might be fired, but it would be a righteous display.
Here’s the email I sent yesterday to Nowakowski and Lucas:
………
Here’s a question for your students’ exam:
Q. Who said : “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”?
A. Thomas Jefferson
You should be proud of your dissenting students.
One more step to full-fledged fascism in this country. There are so many incidents like this happening around the country these days. Unfortunately as happened in Europe in the 30’s when the situation gets really bad after another terror attack, real or concocted, and further decline in the US economy, the majority of the American people can be depended upon to go along with the fascist regime. The anti-fascist minority will quickly be marginalized and pinpointed for repression that will make the repression of the McCarthy 50’s look like a tea party. Smart people are making plans to get out quick, but so were some of the jews who were too late and got caught before they could get away from the Nazis.
Buckycat
That’s a great suggestion! Then school officials would have to suspend them all!
I suspect that there are some kinds of declarations more welcome on our high school campuses than declarations against war:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdM8PDu6VMg
unreal…i recall when I was in HS there was a sit-in protesting the Rodney King verdict and subsequent LA debacle…more than 100 students took part…the administration wisely did…NOTHING…perhaps because they not only respected the Constitution, but because the trouble it might cause to take disciplinary measures would not have been worth it…and, for the record, this was not a “liberal” school…let’s hope this school is just one bad example and not a forboding of what is ahead…
Let me get this right…
You can have Military Recruiter’s legally actively recruiting for the war on campus….
but you can’t have a peacefull war protest?
I predict the draft will be back after the next rigged election in Nov 08, or the Dictators re-appoint themselves as the deciders.
Our society seems to prefer order and security over expression and freedom. When a recent poll was taken, 52% of Americans were willing to give up some freedom for security, a sad state of affairs. Give me the students who participated in the protest over those who just get through the day, avoiding thought and the expression thereof. Kudos to the parents who supported their students against an administration that seems to want the enforcement of silence, thereby giving the appearance of citizen consent.I hope someone teaches the students some statements that I have started using as my e-mail signatures. From our founding fathers: “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” -Benjamin Franklin and “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” -Thomas Jefferson; as well as instruction from other well-known Americans: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and serville, but is morally treasonable to the American Public.” -Theodore Roosevelt; “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” -Edward R. Murrow. I encourage them to continue acting on their convictions, “Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it” -RFK. Sadly, my view of America today coincides with a prediction of another well-known: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken. Reading about these students has given me some hope that the future is not lost.
These 16 year old “children” are mandated to register for military service in two years or less. How dare anyone say they don’t have the perfect right to speak out about their futures.
I hope the ACLU takes this up.
Obviously, the school administrators are mad at the students for not bribing them first. That’s why the recruiters can speak their piece and the students can’t.
Seriously, I think the admin staff just can’t stand it when a student group expresses an opinion they don’t agree with. They seem to view it as mutiny, or ingratitude at the least.
redjeff, my daughter is 17, a week or so ago the army sent email to MY personal email address for her to join the military.
Someone from the Truth Project got abck to me, because I have been working my way down a list, he asked if she had a drivers license. She does, he said they are legally allowed, the military, to access all personal info from that. I still do not know if using MY PERSONAL EMAIL, is legal.
During Vietnam, we staged sit-ins, walk-outs and we never had any repercussion’s from school administration. FU world.
In the 70s we never closed a cafeteria or kept anyone locked in their class room.
That went over the line and all kids should be given the same penalty.
The parents are wrong in allowing their kids to close down the cafeteria and such to protest the war.
Maybe I would be more symphathetic if they gave up a weekend of shopping at the mall for a protest.
No sacrifice was made there.
Was heart in that or was it similar to bogus 9-11 bomb calls or gun calls?
evelyna
Are you suggesting that people were unable to eat in the cafeteria because some people were protesting a war peacefully? I really don’t understand how that works… From what I’ve read the kids were no more noisy than any other group of kids that gets together during lunch. When asked to move, they did, then got tossed out of school. Heck of a lesson to teach them, that is. Obey orders and get screwed. Actually, that is a very good lesson for the kids to learn.
Holy shit. The “education process”, as important as it could be in the most utopian situation, pales in comparison to speaking out against the death of around 1,000,000 innocents.
That said, the “educational process” was not interrupted as they claim. What process might they be referring to, outside the process of indoctrination that saturates schools. The cafeteria got crowded? Get out of here. Could not have been as damaging to the learning process as the crowding of the classroom.
I wonder how the education process is disrupted in Iraq these days. I can think of somebody who needs to be expelled for that situation.
Expulsion for this shit? Are you serious? Honk for Peace gets you fired … a sit-in gets expulsions … you get to plea bargain your punishment in exchange for information on who organized it?????
I suppose this serves as an educational experience on the gross injustices that we have here in the land they force 1st graders to pledge allegiance to despite not being able to say half the words, let alone know their meanings.
And I am done.
evelyna: they didn’t close down the cafeteria; that is what the school said happened because the school decided there was some emergency and the cafeteria needed to be closed down. Again, all these kids were doing was holding hands and singing songs. I do believe it is possible to eat lunch while that is going on around you.
To the students and families of Morton West High School (and everyone else here who’s interested),
This is a copy of a letter I sent to the superintendent and principal;
B. Nowakowski
J. Lucas
Dear Gentleman,
It is with sadness and shock that I write this letter.
Currently, I live in China, where I am a professor at one of the top universities. Previously, I was a teacher at one of the leading, private preparatory schools in the United States, where I received additional ‘merit pay’ annually, for outstanding work.
In China, it is becoming increasingly difficult to educate the students in the virtues of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, when the news from
America is increasingly filled with examples of free speech being limited, restricted, and stifled, your recent actions being strong examples. My students (and those of other American professors here) continually, and rightfully, point to actions such as yours as disingenuous, hypocritical, and as bluntly reminiscent of the kinds of censorship and controls against free speech found here - the very things the United States has long used as examples of the horrors to be had in societies that are not free!!!
Simply put; you do a tremendous disservice, not only to the students of your own school, whom you claim to be educating, and their families, your community, and the citizens of the United States - all of whom are effected by your hypocritical behavior - but you further damage the hopes of people who desire freedom around the world. People look to the United States to be the best example of a country that embraces true and ultimate freedom in every sense. You sirs, have tarnished that view.
I sincerely hope that the students will not receive any punishment, but will, rather, be given some special merit. You would, in so doing, not only elevate the hopes and dreams of people around the world and the image of America, but your own images as well.
Your brave students deserve awards.
Respectfully yours,
name
I stopped loving the USA (United States of Atrocities) a long time ago. Now with each passing day I like this fu–ing country less and less.
Check out the Veterans Parade today and notice how the anti-war vets have been barred from marching. Oppression seeps in unnoticed at first, then it builds up and strangles all opposition. The students should be proud. Let’s hope a majority of students in the in the Nation try the same anti-war sit-ins soon before Bush, et.al march another thousand younsters off to war.
What is wrong with people’s minds? Almost on a weekly basis, from Florida to Alaska, I read about some school administrator acting like a complete schmuck. Does our school system attract this kind of knucklehead or what’s the problem? Why do so many of them just completely lack adult thinking skills?
It is to laugh uncontrollably.
“In the 70s we never closed a cafeteria or kept anyone locked in their class room.
…
The parents are wrong in allowing their kids to close down the cafeteria and such to protest the war.”
If you are so concerned about closing a cafeteria and locking people in classrooms, maybe you need to direct your ire at the person who did that, Ben Nowakowski. The students were in one corner of the cafeteria. They weren’t anywhere near the classrooms. The only reason that the cafeteria and the classrooms were shut were because of the aforementioned ignorant schmuck. If he had acted like a grownup, classes would have gone on as usual and the students in the rest of the cafeteria could have finished their lunches with absolutely no problem. But no, Mr. Schmuck has to play the bully card. It’s people like him that make polack jokes not funny.
This pretty much fits in with Ms Mayer, the teacher who was fired for answering a kids question about peace marches.
http://www.populistamerica.com/if_it_was_good_enough_for_hitler
She has taken the case to the Supremes and the results have been that a teacher has no right to do anything but parrot whatever party line the school board mandates. Any expression of opinion or openness of discussion can lead to dismissal.
Kids cannot protest war or other inequities, cannot wear clothes that have forbidden political comments on them. Demonstrators are banned or expelled, even if the protest is gentle and restrained.
Veterans are banned from demonstrating, Code Pink is banned from government buildings.
Always remember, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” and they are letting you know it every day. No fly lists, no border crossing lists, airlines now have to give the government information on every passenger 72 hours in advance of the flight. Foreigners may not be allowed to fly across the United States, say from Canada to Mexico, without specific clearance from HS.
Always Remember:
WAR IS PEACE
IGNORANCE IS TRUTH
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
and you’ll get along great in our brave new world.