BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, PA — Bensalem Township High School students are planning to stage a walkout on Tuesday morning to protest ICE activity throughout the nation.
A student reached told Patch that high school students are planning the walkout for 10:50 a.m. on Tuesday.
“After the recent sighting of ICE vehicles in the Bucks County area, students began to organize their own anti-ICE protests. Plans for a walkout soon spread throughout Bensalem High School via word of mouth and social media,” the student, who only wanted to be identified as Mariam told Patch.
Susan Phy, the district’s community relations director, said that Bensalem High School Principal Geoffrey Per met with about 200 students on Friday and informed them that they would not be permitted to walk out of school to participate in a protest during the school day.
“This decision was made to ensure the safety, supervision, and well-being of all students and to maintain an uninterrupted learning environment,” Phy said. “We respect that students may wish to express their perspectives.”
The high school administration instead offered the gymnasium for one designated period for students “who wish to participate in a supervised forum.”
Phy said that all classes would operate on a normal schedule.
Students who choose to attend the gym session will be responsible for any missed work and must coordinate with their teachers to make up assignments outside of instructional time, consistent with the district’s Student Handbook, Phy said.
The student told Patch that many “walkers” doubted the effectiveness of a walkout with highly limited perimeters and thus began to foster adversarial views of the administrators who sought to restrict the demonstration.
“Despite the different viewpoints, these students have a shared cause: Get ICE out of Bensalem,” the student said. “They believe that the arbitrary racial profiling and extrajudicial killings done by ICE agents pose a threat to immigrants and the Bensalem community at large.”