The protest promised for a few days materialized at last night's city school board meeting. Teachers and students clashed with the board over the district's new in-school suspension policy. Photo by Matt DeTurck.
The fire marshal at one point estimated the crowd at last night's school board meeting to number around 1,000. Photo by Matt DeTurck.
Hours after administrators placed East High on lockdown and police recovered a gun from the school cafeteria, hundreds of students, parents, teachers, and community leaders descended on the board of education building in protest on another matter.
The protest - which took place during the school board's regular monthly meeting - concerned the handling of in-school suspensions. It was organized days before the incident at East and drew so many people that officials cut off entrance to the third-floor board chambers by 6 p.m. Speakers, including some students, were still outside when their names were being called. Adults upstairs had to give up their seats and go out in order to let the students in to speak.
Attitudes about the in-school suspensions were across the board with many favoring Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard intentions, but critical of the implementation. Others wanted the new policy dropped and asked school board commissioners to return to the practice of sending suspending students home.
Descriptions from students and teachers alike portrayed East High as a school in chaos with students roaming halls in groups, daily fights, and insufficient security.
Comments for "PROTEST: Teachers, students clash with school board" (1)
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reg said on Nov. 21, 2008 at 5:00pm
I'd like to see Brizard deal with the in-school suspended kids himself. If some kid that got suspended came to school and did violence against Brizard himself, then maybe he would reconsider the policy.
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