Officials surprised

Estancia High School administrators said they were surprised when students walked out in protest on Monday morning, but they planned to take no action against the demonstrators beyond marking them absent.

At around 10:30 a.m., a large group of mostly Latino students walked out during their break period to join a demonstration at City Hall. Administrators allowed the protesters to leave but stood outside and warned them that any students not returning to class would be identified as truant.

In the last week, high school students have walked out in other parts of California to decry a proposed federal bill that would stiffen illegal immigration law and tighten border constraints between the United States and Mexico. Estancia Principal Tom Antal said he hadn’t heard about plans for a walkout at his school until shortly before the students left.

“It happened so suddenly,” he said. “We told them, ‘Get back to class. You need to go to class,’ and they went in the other direction.”

Antal, who is in his seventh year at Estancia, said he could not remember another walkout like the one on Monday, although a number of students had staged a protest against the Iraq war outside the school three years ago. By the end of Monday, he said, none of the students who left for the rally had returned to class.

Administrators estimated the number of departing students between 80 and 100, although the school had no definite count. Assistant Principal Lee Gaeta said that shortly after the walkout, he caught up with a group of students on their way to City Hall and advised them to protest respectfully, especially around police.

“I was more concerned with their safety,” Gaeta said. “We don’t tolerate their leaving school. We don’t stand up and say, ‘That’s OK.’ But they have to stay safe, and that was our top priority.”

A few miles away, a number of administrators and security guards stood around the perimeter of Costa Mesa High School, shutting the school’s front gates and discouraging students from leaving. Around noon, the protest march passed by Costa Mesa High on its way back from City Hall.

It was unclear if any Costa Mesa High students made it to the rally, although Principal John Garcia said the barricade had succeeded.

“Our kids have handled it very, very well,” he said. “We heard some kids talk about some type of protest, but we’re impressed by how they handled themselves.”

He noted that students who left to join the rally would have been treated as absentees.

“We always tell students, when you’re with us, you’re here for the school day unless a parent pulls you out,” Garcia said.

TeWinkle Middle School did not report any major walkouts Monday. However, eighth-grader Annette Mendoza said she and a large group of friends planned to lead a protest outside the campus this morning.

Annette, 13, a member of the Save Our Youth center on the Westside, said many of her friends had wanted to walk out Monday but opted to wait a day so the word could spread around campus.

“I want us to make a point that if they’re kicking out people who are immigrated, they’re going to be kicking out so many children,” she said. “So many people’s education is going to be ruined because of one policy of taking out immigrated people.”

Supt. Robert Barbot echoed campus administrators by saying that the departing students would receive normal truancy marks. He didn’t comment on the illegal immigration bill, which will reach the Senate this week. The House passed a different version in December.

“We educate the kids who come to the door, and those issues need to be resolved by the public and Congress elsewhere,” Barbot said. “Kids come to school to be educated. That’s our position.”