LC Team Seattle School Board Speaker Announcement YAWR
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for official press release:



Important! ***To speak at the School Board hearing this Wednesday, May 2nd, you have to call (phone lines are open by 8am) or email the School Board on Monday, April 30th to reserve a spot on the speaking list.
By the time you read this, you have to call or email *NOW* before all 20 slots are filled up. The speaking list will be closed Tuesday at the end of the business day. We need students, parents, school staff, and community members to speak.
Call (206) 252-0040 or email boardagenda@seattleschools.org
You have to give them your name, phone number, email address, and topic you’d like to address.

Seattle School Board Public Hearing
This Wednesday, May 2nd
Hearing begins at 6:00 PM
2445 3rd Ave S.
(Cross street is S. Lander St. five blocks south of Safeco Field)

*You can speak for only 3 minutes. If you do not want to speak but would be willing to reserve a spot and give your spot to someone else who shows up, please call or email the School Board to reserve a a spot. But you have to show up to give your spot to another person.
If possible, please try to meet outside the School Board Building (address above) at around 5:30pm, so we can have some time to meet up and prepare. We are hoping anyone able to join in will do so! Let’s pack that boring quiet room with loud passionate students and supporters once again!
YAWR DEMANDS: In the run-up to the student walkout against the war in 2005, the antiwar movement succeeded in pressuring the School Board to adopt a policy restricting military recruiters’ access in our schools. However, military recruiters are ignoring the policy. They have found loopholes to get around the regulations, and the School Board has failed to enforce their own policy. So we are demanding that:
1. Support the Ballard initiative as an immediate first step. One important aspect of this initiative is to limit military recruiters to one visit per semester. Currently no restrictions are placed on the number of visits; in some cases, military recruiters visit schools every day.
2. If the School Board feels compelled by the federal “No Child Left Behind Act” to allow military recruiters into our schools so the School District continues receiving federal education funding, then the School Board should at least enforce their own policy that is supposed to restrict recruiters’ access in the schools, which they have failed to enforce. In addition, the School Board should write a letter to President Bush protesting the “No Child Left Behind Act”.
3. The School Board at least take a non-binding public stance against military recruiters’ presence in our schools.
4. Stop the school closures! We need money for schools, not war!

Our schools are being used as recruiting stations for the war in Iraq!
Schools should be for education, not signing up young people to kill and be killed in Iraq. Recruiters are notorious for blatantly discriminating by targeting public schools rather than private schools and targeting schools with low-income students and students of color. We need to end this back-door racist poverty draft!
Stop the school closures! Money for schools not war and tax breaks for corporations!
In recent years, the Seattle School District claimed they had a budget deficit and wanted to close 12 schools. But a parent rebellion prevented them from closing down 5 of the 12 schools. This shows the School District can find the money when they feel enough community pressure.
There is no reason the government cannot find the money to keep the remaining 7 schools open. The federal government has spent over $400 billion of OUR tax-dollars on the Iraq war! Why should the budget deficit be balanced on the backs of working-class families, communities of color, and public school students who are already disadvantaged?

In 2001, the Washington State Legislature claimed they had a $2.3 billion budget deficit. Yet they still somehow found the money to give Boeing a $3.2 billion tax break! Tell the School District to keep our schools open and get the funds from the state or federal government who should tax war-profiteering corporations like Boeing and multi-billionaires like Paul Allen!


The protest succeeded in breaking into the local mass media and onto the national Associated Press newswires, with organizers mentioned in several of the stories. Local TV and radio stations carried reports and both of Seattle’s daily papers prominently featured the walkout (we made the front cover of the Seattle Times with a large picture, and were on the front of the local section of the Post-Intelligencer), though as usual they under-estimated the turnout. (See links to some of the media coverage below.)

The walkout was endorsed by a wide number of organizations and individuals, including Aaron Dixon (Seattle Black Panther Party founder and Green Party candidate for US Senate in 2006), Veterans for Peace #143, American Friends Service Committee, Team Victory, and Socialist Alternative, as well as a host of other local antiwar and progressive organizations. But it could not have been achieved without the dedication, sacrifices, and contributions from all the students and activists who helped organize this walkout. We really want to thank all of you who helped out, all of the endorsing organizations, and especially the students who took a stand and walked out of school.


Building a National Student Walkout
A common theme throughout the day was that mass student walkouts are vital for building a huge antiwar movement of workers and young people that sends a clear message to the ruling elite that business as usual will stop unless their war ends. A powerful example of the impact student walkouts can have was shown by the case of Lt. Ehren Watada. Watada has said the previous student walkout Youth Against War and Racism organized in Seattle in November 2005 was what inspired him to take a stand as the first U.S. military officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq.

The walkout rally agreed to issue an appeal to students and antiwar groups across the country to organize a nationwide student walkout and strike against the war in the fall of 2007. Many students commented they were very excited to go all out to build a much bigger, stronger, national walkout in the fall.

This would fall one year after the American people voted overwhelmingly against the Iraq war in the November 2006 elections and we will be demanding that Congress finally cuts off the funds for the war and brings all the troops home. A massive, nationwide student walkout would be an enormous step forward in building the antiwar movement. We are calling on students and antiwar organizations to contact us to join us in issuing a call for a national student walkout which we will be circulating soon.

We are also calling on students to organize protests against military recruiters in your schools, and to contact us for help, since the School Board refuses to ban military recruitment in schools.

For more information and to get involved in organizing the fall 2007 national student walkout or challenging military recruiters in your schools, contact

YAWR

This coming WEDNESDAY MAY 2nd we have an opportunity to keep up the pressure!
TELL THE SEATTLE SCHOOL BOARD:
NO MILITARY RECRUITERS IN OUR SCHOOLS!
And stop the school closures!

Thousands of students walked out of schools throughout the Seattle area on April 18 to demand an immediate end to the Iraq war. The walkout, organized by seattle peace organizations, culminated in a protest at a meeting of the School Board, calling for military recruiters be kicked out of our schools. The students also protested the School District’s plan to close 7 Seattle schools, calling instead for money for education, not war.

Throughout the day of rallies and marching throughout Seattle’s downtown, the students’ energy and enthusiasm was palpable, with non-stop chanting and speeches. Students from over 50 schools joined the walkout, mainly from high schools, though there were also many students from colleges and even a few middle schools. Unlike many antiwar protests which often draw the same crowd of activists, this walkout succeeded in mobilizing hundreds of new students and young people who had been to few protests before, if any.

After a rally and a long march, we rallied outside the Seattle School board, where there was a concert with amazing music and more speeches. Seattle hip-hop artists RA Scion and Gabriel Teodros, among others, performed. Throughout the day of rallies many different high school and college students spoke, as well as speakers from Iraq Veterans against the War, Socialist Alternative, and Jobs with Justice, among others.

When the School Board meeting started, the normally sterile atmosphere of the meeting, which is usually dominated by bureaucrats and detached politicians, was disrupted when protestors marched in chanting “What do we want? Recruiters out! When do we want it? Now!” taking over the meeting for several minutes.

The one hour public comment period was dominated by powerful speeches by students and antiwar activists, frequently interrupted by thunderous applause. Speaker after speaker demanded the School Board finally take meaningful action against military recruiters and stop the school closures.

School Board members were clearly taken aback by the community’s outrage. While they have tried to create the impression that they are listening and will begin enforcing and tightening their policies restricting recruiters, we will definitely need to keep up the pressure on them to make sure they really follow through in deeds, not just in words. At the same time, a new policy further restricting recruiters access to Seattle public schools would still be far short of what we need—military recruiters out of schools completely.

One after another, students and members of the community got up and hammered the School Board for its lack of action on these issues, particularly the issue of military recruiters in our schools. It was clear they were taken aback by our outrage! Following each speaker’s conclusion, a thunderous applause erupted from the entire room.

Although it was an inspiring night, we feel we must keep the pressure on the School Board until they fulfill the demands of the people they represent.



//Solidarity





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