Protest prompts protest

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — A former Coeur d’Alene School District board member is accusing the district of violating its own policies by allowing political lobbying on school grounds during Wednesday’s student walkout.

Tom Hamilton, who spent a term as a Coeur d’Alene school trustee, including a stint as board chair, and who helped write a policy prohibiting political lobbying on campus, said student leaders who organized Wednesday’s 20-minute walkout at Coeur d’Alene High were allowed to break the rules.

The district walkout to promote school safety recognized the victims of the Feb. 14 Parkland, Fla., school shooting that left 17 dead.

Hamilton said some of the 200 students who gathered in the CHS gymnasium during the walkout were given cards from an activist group encouraging them to download an app, choose from a menu of activities, and use an anti-gun script to call Idaho’s congressional delegation.

The app, called 5calls.org, advertises itself as “the easiest and most effective way for citizens to make an impact in national and local politics. Turn your passive participation into active resistance.”

Hamilton said the activity flies in the face of school policy.

“Of particular interest were the political lobbying activities conducted on school grounds, during contract hours, which were not only supported but lauded by the administration, who should have been aware that this activity violates board policy and the law,” Hamilton wrote to Superintendent Stan Olson in an email obtained by The Press.

Hamilton said he helped write the policy that makes partisan lobbying on school grounds illegal.

“I’d point you to Board policies 4230 and 3250 both of which prohibit the distribution of partisan materials or materials from advocacy organizations promoting programs that are political or could be perceived as controversial, and I would ask for a response as to why this was allowed to happen,” Hamilton’s email said. “Unfortunately, the district’s approach to this event has taken the attention away from important conversations that we should be having.”

School district spokesperson Scott Maben described Wednesday’s activity as student-led, although he said students had conversations with administrators and faculty before the gymnasium event. The 50calls.org material was not brought up in those meetings.

“They didn’t say anything to us in advance,” Maben said. “If they had presented the material in advance, it would have given administrators a chance to look at it.”

The walkout included brief speeches by two student leaders who had a table in the middle of the gym. They handed out voter registration information to seniors before concluding with a 30-second moment of silence.

“It lasted 20 minutes or less,” Maben said. “We let the kids have an opportunity to speak and assemble peacefully, and that’s what they did.”

The assembly, however, turned into an agenda-driven event, Hamilton contends.

The administration “… allowed it to degenerate into a circus side-show related to gun control,” Hamilton said.

The reason for the policy is to protect students, he said.

“… From being used as pawns in these conversations and that is exactly what you have allowed to happen here,” he wrote.

Faculty and administrators were on the gym’s perimeter during the student-led event, to ensure it went off safely, and therefore did not oversee materials handed out at the table, Maben said. And he didn’t think students knew about the policy against politicking on campus.

“I’m not sure students are aware of the policy,” he said. “This will give us an opportunity to remind students that this policy is in place.”