Skagit County, WA – Several Students from the Mount Vernon and Burlington High Schools participated in a “Walk Out” today to protest President-Elect Donald Trump.
The protest appeared to be planned via social media, where the organizers titled it “Love Trumps Hate Walk Out.” Several Mount Vernon High School students reportedly walked out of their classes around 1:30 pm. The students met at the School Friendship Circle and then walked from the Mount Vernon High School to the Mount Vernon Court House.
One Mount Vernon High School parent, Darcy Craig, posted on the Skagit Breaking Facebook Page “SO just found out the from my daughter that the MVHS had a walk out …. they walked to the courthouse where the Mayor was waiting an(d) talked to them … Proud of my kid for exercising her right to peaceful protest”
One Organizer who goes by the name Domo Rivera on Facebook, provided SkagitBreaking.com with the following statement on November 14th, 2016. “As someone who led the protest I would like to say that we did not protest because we wanted to skip school. The reason of our protest was to spread love and stop hate. We don’t want to start issues within our community. All we want is to unite and prove that there is love in our community.”
Below is a short video clip provided to SkagitBreaking.com by a student who wished to remain anonymous. **Please note the video clip has been removed, as it was NOT related to the protests today.
Burlington-Edison High School Principal Todd Setterlund sent an email out to parents after the incident in Burlington, which read “Today during 4th period, several students chose to walk out of class in protest of the recent national election results. While we respect the students 1st Amendment rights to express their views, we strongly discourage the use of instructional time to be used to protest. The student walkout today was neither sanctioned, nor organized by the school. As always, students are expected to be in class throughout the duration of their class periods. Participating students will be marked with an unexcused absence.
We encourage you to help your student identify constructive, long-term strategies for channeling her/his frustrations. These may include:
- organizing or connecting with existing groups to further her/his viewpoints;
- communicating to elected officials regarding the objectionable policies/attitudes;
- supporting efforts of community organizations that assist groups she/he feel are at risk;
- forming student groups at school to meet during non-instructional time to discuss and plan outside or authorized school activities;
- connecting with students in other schools/communities to organize broader based rallies.
We value your partnership in helping to defuse student tensions and encourage respectful dialogue and positive actions. We remind our students that Burlington-Edison High School is a safe place for everyone regardless of where they come from, their religion, race, orientation, identity, gender and income.
If your student is needing support at school or if you have questions, our counselors and administrators are available as a resource.
Burlington School Superintendent Laurel Browning sent out the following Email to Parents and Students:
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In a separate incident, Jerome Edge, wrote Skagit Breaking on November 10th, 2016. His message said “Today a report was filed with police as four white males in a red Honda drove up and threw a beer bottle at my Mexican girlfriend telling her that her people better get ready to go home today in Burlington.”
A school teacher we talked to, encourages any student who is being harassed by fellow students for any reason to immediately report the harassment to their teachers, counselors and/or their parents. She said, most districts have policies in place that include “Harassment of any kind” and state the harassment won’t be tolerated. Students who harass another, are subject to disciplinary action.
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