JEFFERSON COUNTY — While teachers and the Jefferson County school board are busy blaming each other for this week’s student walkouts and protests, the teens are happy to take credit.
“People think because we are teenagers, we don’t know things, but we are going home and looking things up,” said Savanna Barron, a senior at Lakewood High School, as she waved a sign on Kipling Street on Thursday morning. “If they don’t teach us civil disobedience, we will teach ourselves.”
By Thursday, the fourth straight day of protests, students had improved their organization, message and size, rallying a group of roughly 1,000 at a combined Columbine and Dakota Ridge high school walkout that saw kids crowd onto a pedestrian bridge over South Wadsworth Boulevard.
PHOTOS: View more images from Thursday’s student protests in Jefferson County.
A movement that started with cardboard signs and random chants has moved to bullhorns and even a slogan: “It’s our history, don’t make it mystery.”
Facing criticism about skipped classes — including from passing motorists at Lakewood High who shouted at the demonstrators — some students opted to use their lunch or free periods to protest.
Others said they didn’t mind skipping class.
“It’s an unexcused absence, but I don’t care,” Tayler Lopez, a sophomore at Columbine and a protest organizer, said Thursday. “This is more important than truancy.”
Hundreds of high schoolers across the county have hit the streets protesting a proposed curriculum committee that would call for promoting “positive aspects” of U.S. history and avoiding or condoning “civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.” They’re also upset about an evaluation-based system for awarding raises to educators.
Controversy has swirled around the Jefferson County school board after the election of a conservative majority to run the 85,000-student district. Action began last week when two schools closed because 50 teachers either called in sick or took a personal day.
The issue has become so heated that Thursday the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were investigating threats against school board members’ children. Sheriff’s officials declined to elaborate.
The school board defended the proposed committee Wednesday, although they suggested the most controversial aspects could be cut. Also, the proposal has been tabled.
Students from Columbine, Lakewood, Bear Creek and Dakota Ridge high schools all walked out of school Thursday in the largest single-day protest so far.
Jefferson County school board president Ken Witt spoke near the Columbine protest to reporters from national media outlets, saying he thought the protests were a union tool and that students were being misled.
“I think it’s unfortunate, presently, for our students being used as pawns,” Witt said.
But John Ford, president of the Jefferson County Education Association, the teachers union, called Witt’s assertion that it’s behind the student protests “insulting.”
“This is out of our control,” he said. “The kids have taken this on and run with it. This is a pretty organic, grassroots thing.”
Ford said one student told him she felt this was “the first time she was involved in something bigger than herself.”
Superintendent Dan McMinimee said it’s a positive that students feel empowered to have a voice in their education.
However, he said, “I have a hard time believing that a high school senior cares about the collective bargaining agreement or wants to understand how the superintendent was hired, and those are some of the questions we’ve been getting. I don’t know where that is coming from, and I am not pointing fingers at anybody.”
The protests, which have been organized on Facebook by a handful of students at each school, are staggered throughout the day to increase media presence.
“It was students talking to students talking to more students,” said student Red Domonovi at a protest outside Ralston Valley High on Tuesday.
Kelly Johnson, a former Jefferson County PTA staffer and a mother of two boys in the district, said the kids are organizing through various means.
“They’re using social media, they’re hearing from other kids at school and they’re listening to the news media,” Johnson said. “It’s classically this generation.”
She suspects there are “two layers” of students involved. Those who serve in student government or who have more awareness of the issues brewing around them are galvanizing the larger student body to go out and make their voices heard, Johnson said.
“There is definitely a more informed layer that feels like the community is being disrespected by this board,” she said.
Several parents have said they’ve called in to excuse students from classes to prevent them from being reprimanded. Many who said they told their children they can protest only if they understand the facts were surprised to hear their kids knew more than they did.
“I’m really proud of the kids for standing up for what’s right,” said Kim Foley, whose son is a senior at Columbine. “They’re really well-informed on the issues.”
While parents say the momentum for the protests has come from students, an e-mail was circulating urging adults to protest at a county intersection Friday morning.
In addition, students Thursday said they are planning an all-district walkout next week.
Ford said what happens next largely will be determined by how much students feel they are being listened to.
“Are they being heard?” he asked. “And is the school district doing anything about it?”
