Students across the state staged a walkout Thursday to protest Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of the bi-partisan school funding bill, Senate Bill 140, and the failure by the House to override it by one vote.
The protest was entirely student-led and organized by the Alaska Association of Student Governments Executive Board. AASG student representative Felix Myers, who is a senior at Sitka High School, said they planned the walkout for 40 minutes to represent the 40 votes needed by the Legislature to override the veto.
The group used social media to spread the word of the protest, and from there, student leaders took over at a local level to organize in their schools and communities.
Myers said that he was aware of walkouts involving well over 1,500 students in total occurring in Tok, Kake, Cordova, Bethel, Kodiak, Utqiagvik, Tri-Valley, Palmer, Wasilla, Fairbanks, North Pole, Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, Kotzebue, Haines, Skagway, and hundreds of students across schools in Anchorage including West, Eagle River, Bartlett, Dimond high schools and Polaris K-12 school.
Social media posts showed a well-organized group of students from Juneau-Douglas High School who protested in front of the state Capitol, chanting “fund our future,” before proceeding through the building, filling the stairs and hallways, with some entering into House Finance to watch the proceedings.
While many legislators and community members voiced support for students using their constitutional right to assemble peacefully, some right-wing commentators were less supportive, with blogs like Must Read Alaska claiming without evidence that the students were put up to the protests by “education industry union members,” and some comments on social media calling for heavy-handed actions such as arresting kids.
At Bartlett High School, approximately 100 students gathered to protest the veto. Bartlett student Payton Ketchum said he believed funding for schools was important and that he enjoyed school.
“There’s a lot of teachers here who really care about learning, and they really care about creating a positive impact on youth, and I just feel like that’s really noble,” Ketchum said.
A few teachers stood near the doors but did not get involved in the protest. Some students took advantage of the protest as a learning opportunity, however. Students taking a journalism class at Bartlett moved through the crowd photographing and taking interviews from the student protesters.
Anchorage School District spokesperson M.J. Thim said that while the school district was aware of the planned student walkout, the students organized the protest all on their own.
“ASD has not advocated for students to participate, but school staff will be present to ensure student safety while they exercise their right to peacefully assemble,” Thim wrote in a statement.
Myers, who helped plan the protest along with AASG president Quinlen Shachle and other student board members, said he was proud of the students across Alaska for standing up for their education.
“I think the diversity and widespread nature of the protest is a significant component of the value of this walkout. The fact communities large and small, from Utqiagvik down to Ketchikan, participated exceeded all my hopes and expectations of this walkout,” he said.
