Social Justice

On First Day of School, Seattle Students Walk Out Demanding Equal Education

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by Naomi Ishisaka

Chanting “Say it loud, say it clear, equal education here,” students from Rainier Beach High School led a walkout on the first day of school.

Around 60 students from different schools including Rainier Beach rallied at the Rainier Beach Community Center on Wednesday to protest inequalities in education funding, inadequate school funding in general and disparities in educational access for Black and Latinx students.

Rainier Beach student Edgar Santos Perez said during the rally that in addition to school funding, class size is an issue.

“I [ran] into my old history teacher and she told me she had more than 30 students … which is illegal by the way, for all of her classes for her incoming freshmen. Do you find that fair? I feel like other schools have a better chance of education because they have a better chance of one-on-one.”

Rainier Beach High School Students gathered outside of the Rainier Beach Community Center on the first day of school, Sept. 4. (Photo: Naomi Ishisaka)
Rainier Beach student organizer, Angelina, sings “Lift Every Voice and Sing” during the walkout rally at Rainier Beach Community Center. (Photo: Naomi Ishisaka)
Students left class from schools across the city, including Rainier Beach High School. (Photo: Naomi Ishisaka)
Organizers lead the students to Rainier Beach Community Center on the first day of school, Sept. 4. (Photo: Naomi Ishisaka)
Rainier Beach student Edgar Santos talks about large class sizes in school during the rally. (Photo: Naomi Ishisaka)

One thought on “On First Day of School, Seattle Students Walk Out Demanding Equal Education”

  1. Why could Rainier Beach not become the Seattle Aviation High School. You have rooms, you have teachers. There are a lot of us who have aviation skills who volunteer at Raisbeck Aviation High School. There are 400 applications for the 9th grade class every year. They can only accept 100 and only 30 from Seattle. I am a retired dentist and a Certified Instrument Flight Instructor. I volunteered to help teach a ground school for Renton last year. I have helped judge student engineer reports of flight tests that were done on flight simulators. I even have 7 computers with this software. I would much rather volunteer at RB. Consider what could be done if the 300 students who could not get into Raisbeck Aviation High School came to RB. At least 200 of these are from Seattle. The Museum of Flight has stated they would like closer contact with Seattle School. Think what a program like this could do for the students. Being an aviation mechanic is a very good job. Could the Seattle College start classes here to get students started in the path. We got Renton Votec college credit for the students in our class for Renton students last year. All it take is someone with vision to make this work. Fred Quarnstrom CFII

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