Students Hold “ICE Walk-Outs” at North Shore and Northport High Schools

By Thomas Nothel

Students at both North Shore High School in Glen Head, and Northport High School staged recent student walk-outs to protest the controversial actions of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE has received criticism over their killing of two US citizen protestors in Minnesota, and attracted protests nationally over their efforts to apprehend some of the 13 million criminal and other illegal aliens inside the US.

On Friday February 6th Northport High School students staged a peaceful walkout to protest ICE.  Dozens of students left their classrooms and gathered outside the school.

The Northport protest ended after 15 minutes, and security and school administrators were present during the protest.

Some other Northport students joined together in a “counter‑protest” in support of ICE. Both groups remained orderly throughout the event.

Students at North Shore High School in Glen Head walked out of class on February 4th to protest ICE.  A reported 100 Students took part in the walk out and protest.

The Organizers stated they planned the event to speak out against what they call violence and lack of accountability.

North Shore School District Superintendent Dr. Zublionis released a statement:

“As you can imagine, protests are not a common occurrence. We learned on Friday that students may be organizing a protest and we informed the community through a letter and did speak to many residents on the phone. The school does not and did not organize this or any protest.”

“Students were told that there would be consequences for certain behaviors, including cutting class. Students were respectful and handled themselves in a mature manner. The event ended after one hour, students returned to class and we monitored students back in the school to ensure normal operations.”

“We actively worked with our internal security team and the Nassau County Police Department to ensure safety for all. We appreciate their partnership as did our students, many of which thanked the police officers and security team for their time and for ensuring safety."

"Our students are really good kids navigating complex times; they were respectful of the boundaries that we communicated to them and when finished, quickly got back to learning."