{"id":145740,"date":"2026-01-31T21:42:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/145740\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T21:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:42:39","slug":"abbott-orders-investigation-of-austin-isd-after-students-walk-out-in-ice-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/145740\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbott orders investigation of Austin ISD after students walk out in ICE protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands in Austin ISD students walked out of their classes Friday in protest of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement<\/a>, now Texas Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> is demanding an investigation.<\/p>\n

As part of the protest, some students left their middle and high schools to walk to the Texas Capitol. Responding to videos posted online of the Austin ISD protests that showed district police vehicles near the demonstrating students, Abbott called on Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath<\/a> to investigate the demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAISD gets taxpayer dollars to teach the subjects required by the state, not to help students skip school to protest,\u201d Abbott wrote Friday evening<\/a>. \u201cOur schools are for educating our children, not political indoctrination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protests were not sponsored or endorsed by the district or any AISD campus, Superintendent Matias Segura wrote in a letter<\/a> to families. The district always wants to have students in the classroom during instructional hours, he said.<\/p>\n

The Education Lab<\/p>\n

Receive our in-depth coverage of education issues and stories that affect North Texans.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"ICE<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the school day, our students are our responsibility and we\u2019re committed to the safety of our schools in our community, regardless if they are on our campus,\u201d Segura said. \u201cThat is why our administrators and Austin ISD police remain with our students during protest activities during school hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district has limited ability to ensure students\u2019 safety when they attend non-sanctioned events, Segura said. Staff cannot physically prevent students who choose to leave a campus, and those who leave campus during the school day to participate in a protest will be marked as an unexcused absence, he added.<\/p>\n

\"McCallum<\/p>\n

McCallum High School students walk out of class in protest of ICE in Austin, Texas, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman via AP)<\/p>\n

Mikala Compton \/ AP<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Cafe'Ciro,<\/p>\n

The student marches in Austin were part of a national day of action against ICE, in which a coalition of businesses, labor groups and advocacy organizations called for protesters to shutdown work, school and shopping<\/a>. The protests are in response to the killings of Alex Pretti<\/a>, Renee Good<\/a>, Silverio Villegas Gonz\u00e1lez, and Keith Porter Jr., all civilians who died during encounters with federal agents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands in Austin ISD students walked out of their classes Friday in protest of U.S. Immigrations and Customs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,163,392,1724,287,27],"class_list":["post-145740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-education","tag-greg-abbott","tag-immigration","tag-politics","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}