LEE COUNTY, Fla.\u2014Parents are voicing concerns after students faced disciplinary actions following a nationwide walkout protesting ICE enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The protests took place nationwide, including right here in Southwest Florida, and some participants faced potential suspension or expulsion.<\/p>\n
Therese Dessoye, a parent of a junior at Ida Baker High School, expressed her concerns over the disciplinary measures.<\/p>\n
“I am proud that he was protesting something he believed in,” said Dessoye.<\/p>\n
However, some individuals have differing opinions on the student walkouts.<\/p>\n
“Well, I don’t like to see it. I really don’t. The schools are for reading, writing, and arithmetic,” said Scott Hartman.<\/p>\n
Dessoye shared an email from the school district stating, “While we respect students’ constitutional rights to free expression, our schools exist for one primary purpose \u2013 education.”<\/p>\n
“I feel like they presented a very much, hey, we support the students, but we got to focus on learning, and now they’re doing these extreme punishments, and they’re not being transparent with this,” said Dessoye.<\/p>\n
According to Dessoye, some students at the high school have been suspended pending a hearing.<\/p>\n
“If you have hundreds of kids who are protesting, how are you going to fit this into a timely schedule to get these kids, you know, any sort of appropriate punishment or back into the classroom?” said Dessoye.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson from the School District of Lee County clarified that the discipline is for disruption, not for exercising First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson, Rob Spicker, also noted that about 3,600 students participated in the walkouts across 14 schools, meaning 96% of students stayed in class, and more than 80% of schools were not affected.<\/p>\n
Spicker emphasized that they will continue to discipline students who disrupt the learning environment. The district is currently reviewing the situation, which will take time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEE COUNTY, Fla.\u2014Parents are voicing concerns after students faced disciplinary actions following a nationwide walkout protesting ICE enforcement.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,3837,325],"class_list":{"0":"post-152137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-collaborator_gen_stories","12":"tag-lee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}