If you are a K-12 student, it has never been easier to skip class consequence-free

Anyone who has been a teenager for more than five minutes can probably reach the same conclusion after watching the flood of videos recently posted to social media. Many of the kids streaming out of school to take part in anti-ICE protests look less like committed activists and more like students thrilled to be out of class. You can see it written all over their faces.

Perhaps the plan is to destroy the current system before deciding what the new one should be.

But students who simply want to ditch class are not the ones coordinating nationwide demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Most young people are not deeply invested in politics, if they are interested at all. Large-scale, coordinated walkouts don’t materialize organically.

Unfortunately, perception often becomes reality. Videos of tens of thousands of students leaving school buildings across the country are invaluable propaganda for left-wing activists seeking to foment cultural and political upheaval. This is not hyperbole. It comes directly from the far-left nonprofit organizations helping to organize, train, and mobilize K-12 students.

One such group is the Sunrise Movement, a far-left climate organization that has increasingly expanded beyond environmental activism. Originally focused on promoting a Green New Deal, the group recently announced it was pivoting toward “fighting Trump.” To accomplish this shift, Sunrise appears intent on eliminating opposition to its ideology by any means necessary. The organization has openly bragged about harassing hotel staff and guests for allegedly hosting ICE agents.

Central to Sunrise’s strategy is recruiting young people and embedding itself in K-12 schools. The organization sponsors clubs nationwide, which are then described as “student-led.” Unsurprisingly, these same clubs often organize walkouts centered on climate activism and anti-Trump messaging.

These protests are not meant to be one-off events. According to training materials obtained by Defending Education, Sunrise calls for monthly “direct actions” designed to “disrupt business as usual” and advance a so-called political revolution. The group’s 25-page guidebook — riddled with tired Marxist clichés — explicitly urges minors to engage in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions-style actions against businesses deemed to be “propping up ICE.”

The issue, in other words, is never the issue. The issue is the revolution.

Sunrise’s materials offer little clarity about what this revolution will actually achieve; perhaps the plan is to destroy the current system before deciding what the new one should be.

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But these acts of “civil disobedience” have become less about expressions of student voices and more about spectacles of class-skipping that benefit activists who openly call for dismantling the very system that allows these protests to occur.

In 2018, Robert Pondiscio warned schools that refusing to enforce discipline for the Parkland gun-control walkouts would make them “regret it down the road.” If students are permitted to disrupt learning for one political cause, he argued, schools would have to refrain from punishing disruptions for any cause that follows.

Eight years later, that warning looks prescient. Parents, activists, and even school officials now routinely encourage or excuse walkouts tied to the cause of the month. Meanwhile, the activist groups behind these demonstrations are targeting businesses and institutions that fail to conform to prescribed political views. History suggests that once a movement normalizes coercion, its circle of targets inevitably expands.

It is time for parents, administrators, and school board members to put an end to mass student walkouts before they become a permanent feature of a school system that is already failing far too many children. Roughly 70% of American students are not proficient in core academic subjects. Schools cannot afford to treat instructional time as expendable.

Students absolutely retain their First Amendment rights. But they also have a civic responsibility to become educated citizens. Real, lasting change comes from knowledge, discipline, and understanding — not from performative outrage and adults who confuse activism with education.