From Larry Felson, Oakland High School teacher:
Some twenty-five or more students from The Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, a “small school” within the Oakland Unified School District, walked out of school on Thursday, October 5th to take part in a march and rally in San Francsico in connection with nationwide World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime protest activities involving thousands of people in over two hundred cities. These students were amongst the hundreds of high school students from all over the Bay Area who played an active and spirited role in the San Francisco protest.
Upon returning to school the next morning, these Street Academy
students were literally locked out of the school and informed they were
being suspended for the day.
In California, students cannot be summarily suspended from school
for cutting class. This action of suspending students for taking part
in a political protest is an outrageous act of reprisal and selective
punishment and is in clear violation of California State Education
Codes requiring school officials to exercise due process and seek
alternate forms of discipline in connection with students who cut
class, including phone calls home, parent conferences and/or
after-school detentions.
This attempt to stifle student dissent goes hand in hand with the
Bush regime’s program of poltical repression like the Patriot Act, the
attacks on immigtrants and the recent bill to eliminate Habeas Corpus.
These students must be supported. This suspension cannot be allowed to stand and should be rescinded immediately.
Contact the following Oakland school officials and demand the students not be punished:
Contact information for Emiliano Zapata Street Academy:
Patricia Williams-Myrick, Principal
417 29th Street
Oakland, Ca. 94609
510-879-3130
Oakland Superintendent of Schools:
Kimberly Statham, 510-879-8200.
Office of Alternative Education for Oakland:
Monica Vaughan, Coordinator
510-879-2904