There is a new tool being applied to promote political agendas.  That tool is a nation-wide call for school walkouts and student protests.  Following the school shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, a political organization used the national media and social media to encourage students to walk out of school.  All one has to do is check out the organization’s website to see the political agenda.

To redirect this potentially unsafe and disruptive activity, we began talking with student leaders about spending some time memorializing those who lost their lives at a school.  I told one concerned parent on the telephone, “We are trying to do what many churches and other organizations do at Halloween when they host family focused activities.  We were trying to take something that was designed to be political and unorganized and turn it into something organized and positive (a memorial).”  Our students were wonderful.  Their desire was to honor the lost.  They were not interested in political agendas and shared their intent with us and the local media.

I and several others felt there was some divine intervention when it snowed on the day the political organization had called for the national student walkouts.  I met for about two hours with the principals of Tuscola High School and Pisgah High School to discuss what we would do the next day at school.  We decided to honor the lost with an extended morning announcement and ask students not to walk out.

As I said earlier, the students were wonderful.  In situations like this, our students respond a lot like the rest of us.  They have opinions about what should be done to improve school safety.  However, their primary concerns are personal safety, the safety of others and honoring those who lost their lives on a school campus.

As we look forward, how will the school system respond to future third-party political calls for student walkouts or protests?  We will continue to work with our students when they are concerned about their safety or when they are upset because others have lost their lives in a school.  We will continue to redirect or completely avert activities we believe are politically motivated or potentially unsafe.  We ask students, staff and parents to join us as we respond to this new political tool designed to use our students as political pons.  We will not support third-party calls for political activity during the instructional day (from the “left” or the “right”).  We ask students, staff and parents to avoid actions or behaviors that link our schools with political activities especially during class time and regarding activities that are designed solely to sway political opinion.

In closing, we want to thank our students and staff for how they responded to the most recent attempt to turn our schools into political battlegrounds.  We will not support future attempts of this nature.  We need your continued support to assure our schools are places where students can be successful in academic and extra-curricular activities.  We will take decisive action to prevent our schools from becoming political battlegrounds.

Dr. Bill Nolte
Interim Superintendent