Seattle Area High School Students Walk Out Of Class To Protest Education Cuts (PHOTOS)

Hundreds of students from five Seattle-area high schools walked out of classes Wednesday to protest Washington state's cuts to education funding.

The students convened at the University of Washington, chanting phrases like, "We're the future of our nation, no more cuts to education," The Seattle Times reports.

The state Senate passed Wednesday a measure that would cut about $480 million from education, health care and social services in an effort to close a statewide $2 billion budget gap.

But the student protest sought to raise awareness of Washington state's deteriorating education system, Katie Kennedy, a senior at Ballard High School told KPLU. She suggests raising taxes versus making cuts to education.

"A lot of our textbooks are outdated," she said. "We've had a lot of student teachers let go in the past couple of years. And, also, Ballard isn't affected as greatly as other schools. I want to support every student in Washington. It's not just for me, it's for everyone."

Still, walking out of class might not go without consequence. According to a statement from Seattle school administrators:

"We certainly appreciate our students’ involvement and interest in the state's current funding issues, especially K-12 funding. We are proud of our civic-minded students. However, we encourage our students to stay in class… Discipline is up to the principal’s discretion. Typically, absences are excused with parent/guardian permission."

Wednesday's protest marks the second time this fall that Seattle students have walked out of class to protest cuts to education. Garfield High School students walked out of their classes last month after the state proposed a special legislative session to determine those cuts. In a piece in The Seattle Times, two Garfield students subsequently explained their concerns about state cuts to schools.

Washington is just one of a throng of states faced with massive budget gaps and seeking relief through deep cuts to education and other services.

States like Texas and California are looking at losses in the billions from school funding, resulting in educator layoffs, larger class sizes and slashes to education programs.

See photos from Seattle's Wednesday high school walkout below, courtesy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Comments

[fortressfountain]

04:37 PM on 01/10/2012

I am tired of seeing signs that say "We are your future." I think not. Just because they want the programs we paid into does not mean they will take care of anyone but themselves.

[bgatlake]

10:11 AM on 01/08/2012

stop being a sanctuary city, and maybe you will recoup some tax money that is being blown on foreigners!

[Dancenownzen]

10:55 AM on 01/07/2012

The Republicans want to squeeze $$$ from education so that the only people getting a good education and are able to afford college are WHITE upper middle class ....... WHITES are out numbered now.....and if "those" people are allowed to rise .......soon "those" people will be in charge

[Valerie SteppenAbelin]

08:41 AM on 01/09/2012

what are you smoking?

[megandvc]

01:34 PM on 01/09/2012

You are a bigot and are a disgrace to whatever "people" you come from.

[Dancenownzen]

10:48 AM on 01/07/2012

GOOD FOR THEM

The last thing we should be cutting is education

[buttonq]

02:45 AM on 01/06/2012

Students in the United States and their supporters should perform a walk out once a week for one month. Everyone should mail one book of choice to the Congress and the rest of the government.

I will mail my Political Science book since this course is no longer available.

Oh, I will mail a gym suit with a note saying, "stop talking of reprimand for overweight, nutrition, and lack of physical activity my school/college abolishing gym and extra curriculum activities since education funding is not a priority as well as health. School lunches are in the past and out diets are the money left over from the taxes and health reform given to the federal government, state and local. I do not think $4.00 will purchase a drink and a sandwich. Therefore, it will be the usual ketchup and potato chips mixed and stolen soda from the store in the Congress’s neighborhood. "

Please mail a book to the congress and let us give them a lesson in education and budging.

Our education comes as a cost Congress and the America citizens have decided the following: Starting as today, you will pay for your own health insurance, salary cap of $60,000, and the two-salary percentage for raises each year will be transfer to the education budget. If you have, any questions of the new budget please feel free to ask any student, adult, and others. Thank you…an educated woman

[peoplepersons]

11:19 PM on 01/04/2012

Blame three people. Gregoire, Murray and Cantwell. These three ladies are responsible for what you are seeing. They were in favor of a 623 billion dollar NDAA bill that breaches every liberty and freedom you have. Now they are taking teachers pay and schools funding away. I don;t care if it's federal or State. 623 billion divided by the fifty states would of saved our schools. It's almost like they want to dumb down America. Get us all talking like the Jamaicans working in the sugar cane fields. That's America. 300 million disagree vrs. 3 agree along with a few lobbyists. and the lobbyists and three politicians win. Good night everyone and I hope everyone can come together and win this political battle we are all suffering from.

[dquandle]

09:14 PM on 01/05/2012

No, Blame Bush, Obama, Cheney, Pelosi , Duncan, Klein, Bloomberg etc., and a demented corporate owned congress bent on destroying public education, to create a nation of un- and undereducated drones, for the benefit of their parasitic corporate masters.

Its much easier to institute a fascist agenda when your populace can't read, write, or think.
And who wants all those uppity students thinking on their own...

[skoolteacher]

11:55 PM on 01/06/2012

ahahahaha what?

[Kyana Taillon]

12:09 AM on 01/11/2012

Dumbing down America? Yeah, thanks to the Department of Education and No Child Left Behind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyDtYy2I0M

Now if only we could find a way to drastically cut our spending...say, how about the Military Industrial Complex?

[Carrie Ann Lahain]

12:51 PM on 01/04/2012

That's right...protest shortages in education funding by interrupting your education...very smart. They pulled that nonsense here in Vegas back in October. Teachers called the walk-out/protest educational. Yeah right, watching the "protesters" goofing around on the evening news it was easy to see that the kids could care less about WHY they were out of class.

The constitutional right to free public education doesn't specify exactly what classes need to be offered or that there's a right to fancy electives. Kids need to be prepared to investigate interests not covered in school on their own via the library or private workshops/lessons. Parents who want more educational resources during troubled times need to be prepared to pay for it themselves and not foist those costs on a tax base already struggling to survive.

[david fugitt]

10:33 PM on 01/05/2012

You are a sick persons that knows what they are doing to our system and want to be part of the 1%.how far did you go in school?

[Carrie Ann Lahain]

03:04 AM on 01/06/2012

Graduate school, actually. I'd ask how far you went in school, but the quality of your writing and the lack of reasoning in your response to my comment answers that question.

And, for the record, I attended public school in a large urban area and state universities. So there goes the idea that you need a lot of money or spanking new textbooks to get an education.

[Carrie Ann Lahain]

03:17 AM on 01/06/2012

Thinking on my reply, I regret making fun of your writing. I guess I just didn't appreciate being called a "sick person" because my opinion isn't the same as yours. Still, two acts of rudeness don't equal polite!

[Harold Melton]

09:11 PM on 01/07/2012

With your thinking and others like you is why the USA schools are rated 26th in the world overall, and in the thirty for science and math. Many schools have eliminated many classes, and children are graduating from high school dumber than a bedbug. The USA rather build weapons of mass destructions and invade foreign countries to try to impose its form of democracy. The rich are moving to slave labor to work the jobs that have not moved out of the US, with limited educated workers. Carrie Ann why don't you put your head in a hole.

[Carrie Ann Lahain]

11:05 AM on 01/08/2012

Putting my head in a hole will not make USA parents sit down and help their kids with their homework or even--GASP--actually see that they show up at school. Putting my head in a hole will not change the fact that the majority of school budgets are largely based on local tax bases which have been decimated by the recession. If a kid in China or India can be a math/engineering professional coming out of their spartan institutions, why can't our kids do so with the kind of resources they already have? Why don't you turn your own head to the fact that the kids in this country are lucky just to be able to attend school and not have to work for peanuts making clothes/athletic shoes/Barbie dolls for kids in some OTHER country! Take your HEAD out of your politics and try using some of your MATH skills to see what this country can and cannot afford right now.

[Kandis SupaStar Hill]

12:10 PM on 01/04/2012

I applaud them, for their efforts!

[kmcc895370]

06:31 PM on 01/03/2012

Hey administrators! back your kids up, will you. Don't try to distance yourselves to stay safe when some principals decide to punish them! Being disgruntled with the system and actually doing something, even this is our countries only hope. support their effort!

[mrlanetwo]

11:37 AM on 12/29/2011

Einstein was schooled in a one room school house.
In the 60s my grade school used books dated BEFORE WW2. There were not enough books, so we shared with another classmate. We had NO A/C.. NO computers. And this was all in northern Illinois. I graduated from college and started (did not complete) my Master degree.
Money does NOT grow on trees! Oh, They probably study 3 to 4 hours a day on how Trees do grow money and we should protect each and everyone of them!

[wcritizing]

03:27 PM on 01/04/2012

and your point, is ?

[BJF79]

10:25 AM on 01/07/2012

Maybe that we spend more money per student than any other nation in the world (other than Switzerland and Austria) and our student rankings are a joke compared to the rest of the world. In other words, we should be trying to do more with less, especially with that whole $15 trillion in debt thing hanging over our heads.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-12-07-us-students-international-ranking_N.htm

[MITCH801]

10:46 AM on 12/29/2011

Instead of cutting$$$ to education and social services
How about cutting ALL politicians salaries 50 % or more.

[mrlanetwo]

11:39 AM on 12/29/2011

WHy not cut both?

[david fugitt]

10:17 PM on 01/05/2012

the younger kids in America better wake up and realize that the gov wants them to grow up without anything and be lead around and be their slaves.Wake up America or become a large amount of those people slaves. use some common sense about this matter and see what they already done to a lot of your parents.99% not that extreme but close

[dquandle]

09:15 PM on 01/05/2012

Yup. and removing a president and congress who have massively failed the American people and failed to uphold our constitution.

[MrOnePercent2012]

10:26 AM on 12/27/2011

A bunch of dopes who think money grows on trees.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078484/Knockout-King-The-sickening-game-claiming-lives-country.html

[wcritizing]

03:28 PM on 01/04/2012

telll that to CORPORATIONS who don't paid their faire share

[david fugitt]

10:28 PM on 01/05/2012

Apple owes 4 billion so lets make them pay up.Oh bye the way they have 82billion in cash.Make them all pay up and what a help it would be to the 99%. do not become 1% slaves

[damasview]

04:02 PM on 12/25/2011

There may just be some hope for our future with kids like these. GOOD JOB!

[Valerie SteppenAbelin]

08:43 AM on 01/09/2012

more like...if this is our future....we are SCREWED!

[Basilio]

01:28 AM on 12/25/2011

Wow, kids who really care about their education. That's great to see. I support them because our education system needs a lot of improvement, not cutting funds.

[Valerie SteppenAbelin]

08:44 AM on 01/09/2012

we have been dumping money into "education" for years......it aint workin!

[BeatlesPrudence]

10:02 PM on 12/22/2011

What happened to the promise that the lottery would solve education funding?!

[dquandle]

09:18 PM on 01/05/2012

It went the same way as the promise Wall Street would save our retirements, jobs and nation.
Down the f%$king toilet.