Students plan mass walkout as major California school district strips Pride flags from all buildings

Students at a Northern California high school are preparing to storm out of class Tuesday after district officials voted to restrict Pride flags on school grounds.The uproar erupted after the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees voted 3-2 on Oct.8 to approve a new flag policy, effectively ending the daily display of the Progress Pride flag that has flown at Sonoma Valley High School since 2019, according to the Sonoma Valley Sun.Now students have erupted.

Members of the school’s Gender & Sexualities Alliance (GSA) are organizing a massive walkout Tuesday in protest of the decision.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story The demonstration is scheduled for 11:50 a.m., with community supporters expected to gather across the street from the campus beginning at 11:30 a.m.Protesters are being encouraged to wear rainbow colors, wave Pride flags and bring signs.And students aren’t stopping there.On Wednesday, demonstrators plan to plant Pride flags on the high school’s front lawn at 7:45 a.m.

in another act of defiance.The district’s newly approved policy requires American and California state flags to fly at schools during the academic day, while allowing individual campuses to display their school flags.Other symbolic flags and banners representing specific groups must receive school board approval and can only be displayed during designated awareness months.GSA President Madeleine Edwards blasted the decision, saying: “I’ve been advocating for the pride flag because growing up queer, there’s this assumption that you might not belong in every new room you walk into.”“It’s a really isolating feeling, and as the president of GSA, it’s my responsibility to try to make Sonoma Valley High feel like a place where LGBTQ students belon...