Kit > Tales Of Protest

True stories of how people have protested school issues.

Short examples:

Art classes were disappearing in Portland, Oregon. One student was so upset that she wrote to rock star Jackson Browne and asked him to hold a benefit concert. To her surprise, she got a call at home from Browne himself who agreed. The concert raised $100,000 for arts education and the students, in cooperation with school board, decided how the money would be spent.

Students protested in Cornwall, New York when some parents argued that no youth should be on the AIDS Advisory Committee that makes recommendations to the Board of Education. When the student members on the local School Board threatened to resign in protest, the adults responded and several students were appointed to this advisory committee.

To combat anti-gay prejudice, several students succeeded at creating a Gay-Straight Alliance Club at their high school in North Carolina. Persistence and networking made the difference. Despite their fear of violence and the principal's resistance, the students let it be known that they might file a grievance against the school for violating the Equal Access Act and they also got support from the local GLSEN chapter.

Many more like these can be found on this page.
Add your own stories to the RATS forum here.


Longer examples:

Pledge Protest
The bell had just finished ringing to announce that everyone should be in homeroom. Then the morning announcements began, but first preceded by the daily pledge of allegiance. As usual everyone had to stop what they were doing, stand, raise their right hand to their heart, and recite as though they ...

Small uniform victory - civil disobedience
This took place in a small private school in a small town in South Africa. The uniform isn't nearly as bad as the ones the public schools here have, and most people are generally OK with it, but one day it went too far... The school principal had gone away for a ...

Toronto fights against new bill
There were 6 or 7 of us sitting in the room. We had just decided to hold a Toronto-wide high school walkout because of Mike Harris' plans to pass bill 160; a bill that would overhaul the education system, slash funding, and increase the divisions between students, teachers and the ...

Walkout in Oakville
Product of Persistence Thu Oct 25, 2001 Oakville walked out too! But the politics were backwards. At my school, walkouts can only occur if the weather was good. But I managed to get thirty students and about 10 or 20 pedestrians to help. I started at 9:00am Monday morning with a sign that ...