HUNDREDS PROTEST ALUM ROCK SCHOOL BOARD
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo joins the demonstration
SANJOSE » In protest of the way the Alum Rock School District is run, several hundred students walked out of their classrooms Thursday afternoon.
Gathering in front of the district office in East San Jose, students and parents held signs and urged board members — Esau Ruiz Herrera, Khanh Tran and Dolores Marquez — to resign amid criticism that they have allowed corporate interests to trump the educational needs of children in the neighborhood.
“Hopefully they can hear our voices,” said Michael Damian Gomez Trujillo, a 10-year- old at Adelante Academy and one of about 250 students and 80 volunteers from community groups like Somos Mayfair who took part in the demonstration.
The local protest comes days before a national student walkout to call for stricter gun laws in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school shooting.
“We’re seeing throughout the country that the next generation is awakening to find their voice,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo told the students and parents gathered Thursday afternoon.
Liccardo and the City Council have little say in how the city’s schools are run, but the mayor has criticized the Alum Rock board for threatening to remove the district’s superintendent, Hilaria Bauer, whom he praised as a “whistleblower.”
If the board, scheduled to meet Thursday night, votes to end her contract, Liccardo said, they would be voting to “institutionalize corruption.”
The district has been hit with a string of financial and leadership crises in recent years, with the board members under pressure to resign facing intense criticism for contracting with Del Terra Real Estate, a com-
pany that has come under fire for allegations of fraud, and for hiring a lawyer with apparent ties to the company.
Herrera, who attended the demonstration, dismissed it as a political stunt, saying, “I’ll always be ready to listen,” before being drowned out by students who swarmed around him shouting “Liar!”
In an email, Tran also pushed back at the protesters, calling them “emotional,” before adding, “Soon the facts will be out and these folks will find that they are wrong in their action.”
Some students said they were discouraged from walking out of their schools by teachers and others threatening to pull them from soccer games as punishment for skipping class.
But Liccardo said he was “proud” of the students and thought the experience had taught them an important civics lesson. “You’re standing up for your education,” he said.
It remains unclear what impact the protest will have on the troubled district, where students, overwhelmingly young people of color, have complained of school buildings in dismal condition and few resources.
But some families said they are optimistic change is coming.
“I’m pretty sure it’ll have an effect,” Olivia Ortiz, the parent of two children at Cesar Chavez Elementary School, said of the protest. “We won’t stay quiet anymore.”