Any walkout discipline waits until next week
No action taken yet against students in two local districts who joined Wednesday's nationwide protests.
Students at Kingston and Red Hook high schools who left their buildings during Wednesday’s nationwide protests against gun violence will have to wait through the weekend to find out if they will face any discipline.
Red Hook school district Superintendent Paul Finch said he is “waiting for guidance from the [state education] commissioner prior to making a decision.”
“This guidance may have already been given, but I haven’t seen it yet,” Finch said.
In a letter Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia to “cease any disciplinary actions” by schools, but Elia did not say whether she would do so.
About 250 students walked out of Red Hook High School Wednesday and marched to the center town for a rally. Some said they expected to get detention as a result.
At Kingston High School, administrators sanctioned an in-school demonstration in which students left their classrooms and stood vigil in hallways. But about 100 KHS students left the building and demonstrated at the front of the school property, along Broadway. The Kingston school district said Superintendent Paul Padalino was away Friday and that no decision about possible discipline would be made before Monday.
The Kingston students who protested outdoors were asked to identify themselves upon re-entering the building, leading some to surmise they would be given in-school suspension. A person taking the names said it was to ensure no non-students got in.
Cuomo, in his letter to Elia, said that “threatening to discipline students for participating in the peaceful demonstrations is not only inappropriate, it is unconstitutional.” “The students who participated in the walkout are trying to advance laws and actions that would save their lives, and many viewed their participation as necessary to their own safety,” the governor wrote. “The scourge of mass shootings in schools is very real, and these students were taking proactive steps to protect themselves and their classmates.”
The nationwide walkouts were held exactly after on month after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead.