Oakland high school students leave class for anti-Trump protests

Hundreds of students from about a dozen Oakland high schools ditched the classroom for the streets Monday, playing hooky to show their discontent with the election of Donald Trump as 45th president of the United States in the fourth day of school walkouts around the Bay Area.

Students congregated at the Fruitvale BART station Monday just before noon and then marched with their peers in a demonstration against Trump, police militarization, mass incarceration and gentrification.

Oscar Calderon, 21, who works with a Latino youth group and helped organize the walkout, said Monday’s demonstration was the result of students from about a dozen different schools coordinating together — far more than the protests last week.

Some students had left their classrooms at CCPA, Golden State Prep, Alternatives in Action High School, Aspire Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy, Castlemont High School, Madison Park Academy and Oakland United High School right when school started, while others were planning to walk out later in the day.

John Sasaki, a spokesman for Oakland Unified School District, said that Monday would be the final day for students to have leniency for skipping class, though disciplinary actions for truancy have yet to be decided.

Carla Franco, also a 14-year-old student at the school, said Trump’s characterization of Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals couldn’t be further from the truth.

Kate Dillon, 30, a resource teacher at the school, said administrators did not sanction the walkout but also didn’t stand in the way of students who wanted to leave.