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Students may face punishment for protesting
By DANIEL GILBERT
dgilbert@potomacnews.com
Thursday, March 30, 2006


Students at three high schools in Prince William County and Manassas Park participated in a walkout Wednesday to protest immigration legislation for the third time in as many days.
For the approximately 100 students who took part, the protest was a demonstration of cultural solidarity. For Prince William County administrators, it was strike three.

"Protesters are taking a serious toll on our school programs and on the rights of their fellow students to get the education they deserve," Superintendent Steven Waltz said Wednesday afternoon in a statement warning against future walkouts. "We cannot allow the disruptions to continue."

The protest Wednesday began at 8:30 a.m. when 85 students at Stonewall Jackson High School left the building and walked 4.2 miles to a busy intersection at the corner of Centreville Road and Manassas Drive, according to school officials.

Other students at Osbourn Park and Manassas Park high schools -- a few blocks' from the intersection -- learned of the protest and left their schools to participate.

"They took it upon themselves to leave and the principal sent us out to accompany them," said Kevin Turner, discipline administrator at Stonewall. Turner was joined by Stonewall social studies teacher Brian Ferris and ESOL teacher Betsy Williams.

Sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with an image of revolutionary icon Ché Guevara, 16-year-old Osbourn Park sophomore Alex Iraheta said he had no plans to protest until he heard about the walkout around noon.

Iraheta said he came to protest a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would turn illegal immigration into a felony and criminalize anyone who helps an illegal immigrant remain in the country.

"I have family here who don't have documents. I don't want them to be sent back," he said.

Iraheta said he spoke with principal Timothy Healey before leaving, and was told he would receive a detention if he left school. County officials, however, say students might not get off so lightly.

Ricardo Juarez, representing the National Capital Immigration Coalition, was called upon by the school system to mediate between the students and administrators.

"I've got some bad news," Juarez said in Spanish, addressing the throng of students. "You can't go back to school tomorrow ... until you make an appointment to come in with your parents."

Turner added that students should come between certain hours -- noon to 3 p.m. Thursday or 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Friday -- given the large number of students, and will be "excluded" from school pending the meeting.

Students responded angrily to the announcement.

"Why can't I come to school until 12 p.m.?" shouted Judy Vasquez, 16, a sophomore at Stonewall. "This shows us how the school really is. Other principals supported their students. We want to know why our school is doing this to us."

Phil Kavits, spokesperson for Prince William County Public Schools, acknowledged a departure from policy Monday and Tuesday, when he had said "no special disciplinary steps" would be taken against students who left school to protest.

"Students were not told in advance on Monday or Tuesday that we expected them to adhere to specific rules," Kavits said of the protests that took place earlier in the week. Students were warned "loudly and clearly" with an announcement Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, and again Wednesday afternoon, that they were expected to stay in school, and that "leaving school without permission would result in serious consequences."

Kavits said consequences would be decided case-by-case, meting out punishment in accordance with a student's history, ranging from a one-day suspension to "stronger consequences."

The rash of protests this week involving students from Freedom, Gar-Field, Woodbridge and C.D. Hylton high schools comes with Standard of Learning tests barely a month away, and has teachers and administrators worrying about their students' ability to perform well on the tests.

"We've got a major test coming up in a month, and we want you to do the best you can," Ferris told the students.

Heilyn Montoya, 15, a freshman at Stonewall, was defiant.

"We are here to make our voices heard, and we will keep on protesting until we accomplish what we want," said Montoya, who also participated in the protest at Freedom on Monday while she was on suspension.

She said her goals are to "represent her people," and to protest legislation that would require schools to verify students' immigration status. The bill to which she referred -- HR4437 -- contains no provision requiring schools to check immigration status.

In contrast to student protests earlier in the week, the protest Wednesday lacked a clear political agenda and was devoid of signs objecting to immigration reform. Instead, the students waved flags of Mexico, El Salvador and Ché Guevara, and aired concerns about the role of Hispanics in school and in the community.

"All the Spanish and the black people eat lunch downstairs, and the white people eat upstairs," Vasquez said of the Stonewall cafeteria.

"We do that to ourselves," objected her classmate Julio Ayala, 16.

"What about the dress code?" Vasquez insisted. "If a Hispanic girl shows just a little bit of skin, you get a referral. White girls can wear skirts as short as they want."

"We are the hardest-working people here," Montoya said. "How can you deny someone who wants a better life for their families?"

The demonstration was peaceful -- as student protests Monday and Tuesday had been -- until approximately 2:15 p.m., when the demonstrators were approached by a large, white man wearing a navy blue Fire Department of New York T-shirt and blue jeans.

"Wetbacks," shouted the man, according to eyewitnesses, "get out of this country. Go protest back home."

Juarez, an eyewitness, said he told the man to leave and called the police. The man left in a Dodge Dakota pickup truck before the police arrived.