As the Earth begins to heat up due to global warming, so does San Luis Obispo High School. Students want their voices heard and they want to fight back. As the strike for global change occurred in San Luis Obispo County, most students sat in their classrooms, awaiting for their very “bright” future.
The strike that occurred was supposed to be the biggest environmental strike in history, but maybe one or two SLOHS students showed up. SLOHS is known to be a very active school, whether they are fundraising for people in need or filling the bleachers to support their peers in a sports game.
When it came to the students’ own future, no one came to support. But it was not the student body’s fault.
If students at SLOHS were to leave class to go to the strike, they would be marked as cutting class.
“As a public school district, we cannot promote ‘student walkouts’ and encourage student participation in missing scheduled classes. We currently live in a protest-minded society which is pretty cool; however, I cannot advocate for students (under our care and responsibility) to walk off campus without supervision and/or parent permission,” said superintendent Eric Prater in an interview with Expressions web editor Bella Nino de Rivera.
This isn’t something new, a familiar event happening last year: The March for Our Lives.
“I remember we had a walkout last year for something and [the administration] said ‘you can walk out but if you walk out, we are going to give you a cut,’” said Senior Riley Machamer. Cuts may not seem like a very intimidating thing but most people would prefer to not have this put on their school record.
Even so, SLOHS students did not participate in the strike many other high schools and even college universities did attend. Freedom of speech and freedom to assemble are part of the first amendment, meaning that it is protected by this country. Walkouts and strikes are a way young students at SLOHS can show their opinions; when the school’s administration tries to stop students from walking out, they are violating our First Amendment rights. Putting restrictions on these types of things makes our young voices dulled.
