PARIS — If the SAD 17 Board of Directors approves the proposed Student Protest and Walkout Policy next month, it is expected to be the first such policy in the state of Maine and perhaps the country.

A year after 14 students and three adults were shot and killed by an ex-student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, sparking nationwide student protests and calls for stricter gun control, better school security and even arming teachers, the Board of Directors now face taking action on the new policy that would prohibit student walkouts and protests during school time.

Writing a SAD 17 policy to address student walkouts and protests was prompted largely by the outpouring of parents, teachers and students at a March 2018 board meeting that followed the unsanctioned student walkout at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School during school hours by some 30-plus students who sought to show solidarity with other student protesters nationwide after the Florida school shooting.

Amid the barrage of concerns and accusations on social media and at the board meeting at that time – that there was not proper communication about the walkout –the board agreed to develop a policy that would address many of the concerns.

But the development of the proposed policy did not come easily, said Policy Committee Chairman Judy Green to her fellow directors at the February 4 board meeting.

“We had nothing to go by,” Green told fellow directors at the meeting where the first of two readings of the proposed policy was accepted. “There is no other school committee in the state, and maybe only one in the country, that has a policy on it. So it’s not as though we could say ‘oh that looks good and we pick off of theirs.’”

State input

“There is no MSMA (Maine School Management Association) sample policy,” confirmed Charlotte Bates, director of policy and research services at the Maine School Management Association who worked with the SAD 17 Policy Committee in the development of the proposed policy.

“My internet research at the time did not turn up any policies that had been adopted by Maine school boards or by boards in other states or put out as sample policies by other state school board associations.”

Bates cautioned that the lack of a written policy did not mean schools weren’t prepared for the walkout on “National School Walkout Day” last year or didn’t have options to deal with it.

“MSMA distributed to all superintendents a memo that was prepared by Drummond Woodsum (MSMA legal counsel) outlining the various options for dealing with walkouts/protests on that day including pros and cons, she said.

“The National School Board Association and American Association of School Administrators also provided guidance on student protests and walkouts in preparation of that day. Several other state school board associations also provided information based largely on the NSBA information.”

When asked why there seemed to be no policies available at the time of the walkout, Bates said, “It could be that student protests of this magnitude haven’t been seen since the Vietnam War and no one saw this coming. Or they may have regarded it as an administrative matter.”

“The “National School Walkout Day” protests/walkouts arose as an organized grass-roots effort based on frustration and concern on the part of students to demonstrate their displeasure with the lack of response to gun violence – a demonstration that took place within the context of a heightened political climate fanned by loud rhetoric from politicians and others in high places,” Bates said.

“I am thinking that most schools view this was a one-off event. If it happens again, our guidance would likely be the same, but more boards would then be thinking about policy (adopted as part of the board’s governance role) or administrative procedure.”

Developing policy

The one-page policy necessitated balancing a wide range of opinions amongst Policy Committee members and included input from visitors who came to the meetings over a nearly one-year period to be a part of the policy making decision. The policy needed to balance the safety of students, the efficiency of the school,  the ability of students to be civic minded and learn about current affairs and that of some who had the feeling students would take advantage of it and just “go out for coffee,” Green told board members.

“There was a wide range of opinions,” she said.

While the Policy Committee eventually came to a unanimous agreement to push forward its policy; the full membership of the Board of Directors expressed its own concerns when presented with the proposed policy on February 4.

Should students be allowed to make up class work? Are the First Amendment rights of students being taken away? Should students be allowed to return to class if they leave to protest? Was there a need to write a policy?

All these questions and more were asked as the full board met on February 4 to review the document just 10 days before the first anniversary of the Florida school shooting.

“When we were discussing the policy, we wanted it to be permissive in that students would be allowed to go off campus to protest and they would be allowed to come back,” Director Kirsten Roy of Otisfield said to fellow board members at the board meeting.

Roy said she felt the final draft of the policy took away the students’ right to express themselves within certain guidelines and appeared “unnecessarily harsh to me and disrespectful of the student.”

Roy said her disagreement was with the “tone” of the opening paragraph of the policy that reads, “While the Board recognizes that students have certain First Amendment rights, students do not have the right to disrupt the instructional program or the orderly operations of the schools by leaving class to participate in a protest or walk-out.”

“We didn’t want our students who chose not to participate to have their learning disrupted and we did not want our teachers to have to babysit or look after the students who leave the building to protest,” she said. “I really felt like we tried to go for a good balance.”

Fellow Director Natalie Andrews of West Paris disagreed.

“I think a policy is a rule, like an ordinance. I don’t think the tone has to make them uncomfortable. They’re there to prevent harm,” Andrews said of the proposal.

New board member William Rolfe of West Paris said the policy can not, and does not, punish students who protest or walk out of class any more than a student who violates another area of policy.

Director Lou Williams of Hebron expressed disagreement with the policy’s statement that students who walk out can then make up their missing class work.

“If they chose to walk out they chose to get a zero for that class,” he said.

Superintendent Rick Colpitts said if students leave school, for example to protest, it is equivalent to skipping class.

“The punishment is usually an in house suspension or after school detention,” he said.

“I think they get too much of a say on what they can and can not do,” said Director Stacia Cordwell of Oxford, who praised the committee for its work to develop the policy. “I don’t think they should be allowed to return. If they go out I think a parent should be called and they have to be picked up.

“It seems like a slam dunk,” said Don Ware of Norway. “To me it’s the easiest course to take. It doesn’t give students any ability to protest at all.

There is another possibility, said Green of the debate. Simply don’t have a policy.

Aftermath

February 14, the first anniversary of the Florida school shooting, passed quietly on school campuses across the country.

Students reportedly staged quiet events – choosing to remember the school shooting victims through moments of silence, community service projects rather than through protests.

And on the SAD 17 high school campus, it was the same.

“There were none,” Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Principal Ted Moccia reported last week when asked if there was any sanctioned or non sanctionied observances of the one-year anniversary the Parkland, Florida school shooting.

The Board of Directors is expected to make a final decision on the proposed policy at a meeting in March.

ldixonsunmediagroup.net