A pair of Pennsylvania school districts are the latest to grapple with after effects from student walkouts.
School officials ordered two eastern Pennsylvania schools into lockdown on Feb. 20, while dozens of students left the schools and became unruly. The move came after officials directed the students to cancel their planned protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.
Quakertown High School and Quakertown Elementary School, about 50 miles north of Philadelphia, were locked down for nearly two hours.
School officials took the action after police notified them that high-schoolers, who had left the building without permission, “were engaging in unsafe and disruptive behavior in town,” acting Superintendent Lisa Hoffman wrote on the Quakertown Community School District website.
Her statement provides no further details about the students’ behavior, but CBS News reported that five students were arrested.A video posted on X shows Quakertown police struggling to put a person into the back of a police SUV as a crowd mills around and some people shout. When an ambulance arrives, a man in plainclothes exits an unmarked vehicle, dabbing what appears to be a bloody nose while officers ask if he is OK.
School officials said they were waiting for more information from the police regarding reports of students’ actions. A Quaktertown police sergeant told The Epoch Times that he was not permitted to release a statement from the borough’s police administration.
Earlier in the day, Quakertown school officials had notified families and students that a planned “student-led walkout should no longer occur,” Hoffman wrote. District leaders made that decision after consulting with law enforcement over “a potential safety concern” in connection with the walkout.
However, in defiance of that directive, about 35 Quakertown High School students left the building around 11:30 a.m. Immediately, administrators worked with police and locked down the high school and the elementary school, stopping anyone from entering or leaving the buildings, Hoffman said.
“Students in both schools maintained their normal school day activities,” Hoffman wrote, and the lockdown was lifted around 1:15 p.m.
By Janice Hisle
