Virginia’s Public Schools Prepare for More Political Unrest in the New School Year

Walkouts over mask mandates, overhauled transgender policies and gun violence have disrupted some high schools in Virginia in recent years.

Now with public schools underway in a new year, educators are bracing for actions that could mimic spring protests on college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war.

At a principals’ conference earlier this summer, education leaders discussed how to prepare for the political climate in the upcoming year.

Longtime educator Tim Healey in Prince William County told his colleagues at the conference in June that school climate and culture will become more important than ever in an age of political unrest, divided opinions, and student activism.

Healey said the upheaval students are learning now is completely different from what his colleagues learned regarding free speech from the 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker vs Des Moines Independent Community School District, when students were disciplined for wearing armbands to protest against the Vietnam War.

The court decided in favor of the students who did not “materially or substantially interfere“ with the school’s operation.

“No longer is it just armbands in the Tinker case we all studied in school law, student activism has taken on a much more unique role in our schools, and how we keep our school together with this political unrest is really, really important,” said Healey at the annual Virginia Middle and High School Principals Conference and Exposition in Norfolk.

Healey, who is principal at Colgan High School in Northern Virginia, said his students have walked out over the issues in the Middle East, racial injustice, school shootings and violence, transgender rights and abortion rights.

He said the challenge for school officials and teachers is that students are learning about the history of the Middle East through short social media videos, some of which need to be fact checked. He stressed that school officials need to facilitate students’ free speech, saying it’s important to listen, validate students and teach them how to disagree appropriately.

“I think we see a lot of models around of people yelling and screaming at each other or folding their arms, and [saying] ‘because you disagree with me, you’re the worst person in the world;’ and so we in our history classes and our leadership classes, we are deliberate about teaching our kids how to disagree with each other and have different opinions,” he said.

Healey said expanding beyond the traditional sports teams and clubs could also help to foster a positive culture and climate in schools. For example, Healey said his school boosts student spirit around musicals and multicultural events. At Colgan’s Multicultural Spirit Week, Colgan students wear the colors of their native flag and jerseys from their favorite sports team.

House Committee Chair Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, who recently attended Roanoke City Public Schools annual kickoff to the school year, told the Mercury that one of his takeaways from the event is that a way teachers can help students learn is through their own interests.

“What better way to channel their passion, their interest into better understanding civics, history, constitutional rights amongst other things than to take these interests, take these passions and embrace them and channel them,” Rasoul said. “My best advice is to use this as an experiential moment for those students who genuinely are concerned and would like to have their voice heard.”

On the collegiate level, Virginia’s colleges and universities are a bit more experienced in handling student activism.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the coordinating body for the state’s colleges and universities, holds an annual training and discussion session because of increased campus protests in recent years.

Virginia’s legislature formed a select committee on maintaining campus safety and allowing students to exercise their First Amendment rights, after more than 125 arrests at four of Virginia’s college campuses were recorded in May.

While there are some differences between K-12 and higher education, Senate Education and Health Committee Chair Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, said students, teachers, and administrators must know their rights and limitations when it comes to demonstrating, and for schools to have clear guidelines.

“Essential to this is how we teach our students the parameters of debate, discussion, dissent from each other,” Hashmi said to the Mercury. “That’s part of our responsibility as we’re teaching civic-minded individuals and to give them the tools and the resources to engage in discussion, but to do it in a respectful way, in a nonviolent way.”

by Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury

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