On January 19 parents students, and teachers protested at more than 400 schools throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District to show their opposition to Donald Trump and the ultra-right wing agenda of his administration. An estimated 10,000 people participated in the action.
Participants were encouraged to participate in a tweetstorm organized by The LA teachers union United Teachers Los Angeles . By 3 PM of that day, 2300 tweets with the #SchoolTrump hashtag had been tweeted @realDonaldTrump. Tweets included “better education…not deportation” and “my name is Amanda, and my life matters.”
As many as 300 people took part the action denouncing Trump at LAUSD school Grand View Elementary. Participants denounced the lack of resources at the school. A parent at Grand View Elementary, Sharon Savenne, told the crowd gathered there: “Our kids need nurses at this school, our kids need counselors at this school, our kids need janitorial and custodial staff at this school, they need teachers at this school and they need teaching assistants at this school.” In Trump’s inaugural speech he appallingly stated that U.S. public schools were “flush with cash.”
Protestors carried signs supplied by UTLA that resembled shields that proclaimed that community members, students, and educators will shield schools from the racism, sexism, and anti-LGBT bigotry and Islamophobia of The Trump Administration. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a billionaire whose family has long supported ant-LGBTQ causes. Other signs denounced union busting and the drive to privatize public schools supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. The DeVos family is also one of the biggest political and financial supporters of privatizing public schools in The United States.
At Santee Education Complex in South Central Los Angeles dozens of teachers and students rallied in front of the campus before school. Protestors chanted “Dump Trump” and “2,4,6,8, say no to Trump, say no to hate!” Jose Lara, a teacher at Santee and community activist told Liberation News: “Through raising our collective voices will we be able to defend public education and create the conditions for students to find hope instead of despair. Every teacher that enters the struggle to create a better world is also teaching his or her students that change is possible. Some lessons can only be taught be raising our voice and taking collective action.”
In the Trump era, the intensity of the class struggle will increase. Workers, students, and educators will play an important role in pushing back against the reactionary Trump Administration
