Ahead of a scheduled pro-Palestine walkout of New York City high schools, Chancellor David Banks threw cold water on the ongoing demonstrations — and warned teachers against promoting them.
“Thousands” of students were expected to leave class Friday and gather outside Education Department headquarters to demand protections for students and teachers engaged in pro-Palestine activism, according to a release about the protest. The Daily News could not independently verify the number of planned participants.
“I’m a big believer in student voice and kids standing up for the things that they believe in and they want to see addressed,” Banks briefed reporters Thursday at the department’s central offices in Lower Manhattan.
“I don’t think you need to have continued walkouts to do that. And I think to some degree, the students have missed their mark when you do that, if it just becomes a regular thing, and now kids are just walking out of school, just to walk out of school.”
Central staffers are meeting with some of the schools where walkouts against the war in Gaza have grown commonplace, the chancellor added.
Groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement, NYC Educators for Palestine, Teachers Unite, and the progressive caucus of the teachers union put out a “toolkit” for students to plan their walkouts. Education officials said they do not know of any cases in which teachers are sponsoring or encouraging young people to do so.
“Certainly, wherever we find that we have any of our staff who are promoting that, that is entirely against our policies. And where we find that after we investigate, we will take appropriate action,” Banks said.
On top of allegations that students and teachers have faced retaliation for their advocacy, protesters are calling on the city to reject attempts to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. They also support a teacher-led divestment campaign of pension funds from Israel and Palestinian history curriculum mandates.
At least a dozen staff and school leaders have been removed, disciplined or were in the process of being disciplined tied to antisemitic incidents this school year, Banks testified at a congressional hearing earlier this month. Another 30 students have been suspended, he said.
The protest is not the first planned action against the war in Gaza. In November, hundreds of high school students walked out of school to demand an immediate ceasefire as the Hamas-reported death toll topped 10,000 people, ending at a citywide rally outside the main branch of the New York Public Library.
Israel’s war against Hamas has now killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and was launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks killed some 1,200 Israelis.
“We don’t allow students to walk out, right? We do everything that we possibly can to encourage students to peacefully get their point across in schools,” said Mark Rampersant, who oversees school safety at DOE. “But we are finding through social media that these kids are getting this blast to participate in a system-wide walkout tomorrow.”
Rampersant said he will have “all boots on the ground” Friday, and teachers are also trained to notify parents if their children exit the building. He added that the school system is “going to partner up” with the NYPD “to ensure that things are happening peacefully.”
Recent guidance to principals, reviewed by The News, said schools cannot prevent students from participating in walkouts but should not promote them and “immediately” contact their borough safety directors when they catch wind of such events.
Miatheresa Pate, the interim head of the soon-to-be dissolved teaching and learning division, said the system is taking a “proactive approach” by going directly to schools where students “really need to express themselves” and creating opportunities to discuss current issues.
With News wires
