Some of the young people that I work with brought this article to my attention today, based on a peaceful protest that they organized this past week to protest a policy that they view as unjust. Above, I will post my response. Ironically, Megan Woolhouse took me to work for Take Your Daughters to Work day when I was 10 years old as a result of a letter to the editor that I wrote to one of her male colleagues. I urge others to also respond to this one-sided coverage of young people organizing for their rights.
200 protest tardiness penalty
Roxbury school put in lockdown
Two hundred students at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury protested a crackdown on tardiness yesterday by blocking doors and hallways and preventing hundreds of other students from getting to class on time.
School officials locked down the school after the protest, banning people from entering and exiting and keeping students in the same classroom the last two periods of the day.
“The headmaster put the school in safe mode,” said Jonathan Palumbo, a spokesman for the Boston school system. “Any issue going on in the hallway needs to be addressed quickly.”
The protest was unusual at the school, which typically has a well-behaved student body of 1,300 and boasts test scores in math that are among the top in the state. Officials said two fights had broken out at the school earlier this year. When students came back from the recent school vacation week, the school’s headmaster, Joel Stembridge, found many more students loitering in the hallways and taking seven to eight minutes to get to class, instead of the typical four minutes, Palumbo said.
Stembridge rounded up many of the tardy students Tuesday, bringing them to the auditorium and requiring them to write “a reflection” on why they were late.
Yesterday the students responded. More than 200 blocked hallway and classroom doors, causing the entire student body to be late for class.
Palumbo backed Stembridge’s actions. “Apparently they’re upset with a reinforced policy,” Palumbo said. “They did this, as opposed to taking a more healthy approach to voicing their displeasure.”
Stembridge said no such protest took place in his four years at the school. “We have 1,300 wonderful students and 1,300 amazing things going on here,” he said. “It’s sad that this is what we’re in the newspaper for.”
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.
Response Letter: 200 protest tardiness penalty
March 1, 2008 · 13 Comments
Dear Megan,
I’m not sure if you remember me. My name is Cara Lisa Powers and I went to work with you for a day for Take Your Daughters to Work Day, probably in 1995. Currently, I run the Youth Media Institute at Project: Think Different and had your article about the protest at the John D. O’Bryant High School brought to me by some of the young people that I work with. I am incredibly troubled by the portrait that this paints of young people who are protesting a policy that they view as unjust. By only quoting the spokesperson from the Boston Public Schools, and not giving any voice to the youth, you are reinforcing the dominant perception that adults’ opinions are more valid than those of young people.
The young people that organized this protest are standing up for something that they believe in. Further, they are doing it in a time-honored tradition of organizing their community. Implying that a peaceful, organized, silent protest is somehow unruly is just as unjust as corralling students into an auditorium and preventing their teacher’s from teaching them. I’d like to know what “more healthy” approach their headmaster would have liked to see, other than a peaceful silent protest.
I hope that you’ll consider talking to some of the young people that have been involved in organizing this protest about their education and the challenges that they see in it. Ultimately, high school students are the customers of secondary education. It is our duty to make sure that we are serving their best interest in order to build a more just and sustainable future.
Thank you for your time,
Cara Lisa Powers
Categories: Commentary