On Friday, Austin ISD officials permitted hundreds of students across 14 campuses to leave school during school hours to participate in anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement demonstrations around the city.
I personally observed several hundred students—some of them very young—marching up Congress Avenue toward the Texas Capitol. Many carried signs bearing vulgar slogans, including messages such as “F*** ICE.” Students arrived in waves, at times accompanied by Austin ISD police officers. Adults wearing badges walked alongside the students, suggesting the presence of teachers or other district personnel.
I took photos and video of the march and posted them on X, where the images quickly gained national attention. Governor Abbott reposted my original post and wrote that he was directing Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath to investigate what happened. “AISD gets taxpayer dollars to teach the subjects required by the state, not to help students skip school to protest,” he wrote. “Our schools are for educating our children, not political indoctrination.”
State lawmakers soon echoed those concerns. Rep. Brad Buckley, who is Chairman of the Public Education Committee, said, “Students being escorted by admin and ISD police is at least de facto endorsement of the walk out. Numerous ISDs in Texas met this head on and kept kids where they belong – in the classroom.”
Rep. Tom Oliverson posted, “I can’t believe this isn’t already against state law, to have ISD employees organizing a protest of students during school hours. But if it isn’t, please let me know, bill filing will be here before you know it. Misuse of state funds.”
Rep. Cody Harris wrote, “AustinISD continues to fail Texas kids. When faced with whether to spend precious classroom hours giving instruction in reading, writing, math, and science or to let kids out of school to protest, they chose the protest. Yet every session they beg for more money.”
Parents, meanwhile, raised alarming questions. One X user claiming to be a parent of a student at Lively Middle School, which is a few miles from the Capitol, said his child “didn’t ‘decide to protest’. Class was cancelled. Teachers held the doors open. Everyone left. No one notified me before, during, or after. My son and a few hundred others walked 5 miles to the capitol and back, unsupervised.”
Austin ISD Superintendent Matias Segura attempted to clean up the mess, but only created more questions. The district cannot simultaneously claim that students are its responsibility during the school day while asserting that no action will be taken if students simply decide to leave campus. Parents understandably have a far stricter definition of “responsibility.”
With additional school-related protests reportedly planned later this month, the broader issue remains unresolved. Once again, public education appears to be drifting further from what parents expect: schools focused on rigorous, age-appropriate academics, not institutions that place children at the center of adult political controversies.
