Late Sunday night, Latino Rebels received an email that simply said this: “This happened to my son last Friday.” The sentence was accompanied by a link to a Telemundo news story which reported that students from César Chávez Middle School in Hayward, California, told the Spanish-language outlet that a teacher humiliated them and kicked them out of class for participating in Thursday’s “Day Without Immigrants” protest.
The students said that their English teacher (whose name Telemundo kept anonymous) had ordered the student out of her class on Friday for having taken part in the Thursday protest. One girl told Telemundo that the same English teacher said that the students’ decision to attend the protest was a stupid choice and a bad decision. Another girl said that the teacher gave the students extra work and sent them to other classes. According to the Telemundo report, the students reported the incident to their guidance counselors, who told the students to write a report about what they say happened to them. In addition, Telemundo reported, none of the students’ parents were informed by the school about what had happened to their children.
Parents interviewed in the Telemundo story expressed anger about the teacher’s actions.
Telemundo received a statement from the school district that acknowledged the incident and said that it is being investigated. Latino Rebels has since contacted the school district for a full English-language copy of the statement, but has yet to hear back from Hayward Unified. The statement went on to say that the district has created sanctuary safe zones for immigrant students.
“I don’t want to see her here,” one boy told Telemundo. “I don’t want to see her teaching at another school.”
The Hayward incident is the second example of California teachers criticizing students for attending the “Day Without Immigrants” protest. In Riverside, California, public social media posts mocking high school students led to school district putting several teachers on paid leave and news that the local community will protest a school board meeting on Tuesday.