Boston student walk-out hits education cuts

WW photo: Steve Kirschbaum

Hundreds of students throughout the city walked out of schools on March 23 and converged on Boston School Department Headquarters to protest the School Committee’s budget vote to close or merge 19 schools and cut more than 200 jobs.

The students were joined by parents, teachers, school bus drivers and community activists in a protest organized by El Movimiento for Ethnic Studies in Boston Public Schools and the Coalition for Equal Quality Education. Three busloads of members of the Boston School Bus Union, Steelworkers Local 8751 participated in the spirited protest.

When the meeting began, Boston police and school department officials attempted to prevent the students from entering the building. The students chanted “Whose building? Our building!” and “Let us in!” as their supporters insisted on their right to be there. The people prevailed, and the meeting chamber was packed to overflowing. In fact, it spilled out into the hallway.

As the budget was presented, the crowd held up signs reading “No to school closings” and “No resegregation of Boston schools.” Signs called for “Equal quality education” and demanded “Fund our schools, not bank bailouts and war!”

The students surrounded the officials who presented the budget, and they held up a coffin, which represented the death of public education. They kept up the chant “S.O.S., Save Our Schools!”

More than two dozen speakers, many of them students, condemned the budget-cutting vote. Several students pointed out the hypocrisy of the School Department’s slogan of “Focus on Children.” They said the focus was on money, not children, and that closing the schools would increase class sizes and dropout rates and would deny Boston students their future.

“The U.S. can give money to ... drop a bomb on Libya, but they can’t give money to our education,’’ said Sackona Fitts, a Fenway High School sophomore. “Who are we? We are the youth. We are the next generation. We’re going to do everything we can.’’ (boston.com, March 24)

Fernando Fernii Rodriguez, a student leader from the Social Justice Academy, one of the schools being closed, applauded the students’ unity and action and called for students to continue to organize. Speakers from the Coalition for Equal Quality Education congratulated the students on their action and called for the struggle to continue. City Councilor Charles Yancey called on the School Committee to vote “No.”

The Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights showing that the closings discriminate against Black and Latino/a students.

Although the School Committee passed the budget unanimously, the Coalition for Equal Quality Education plans to meet March 30 to organize further protests targeting the City Council and the mayor.