COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — Three students were taken into police custody and one of them remains in jail on Friday night after taking part in an ICE protest at school.
A 17-year-old East Coweta High School student is in jail with a $2,300 bond and faces charges of disrupting operation of public schools and willful obstruction of law.
A 14-year-old was arrested and released to their parents due to their age and juvenile status. Deputies detained another 14-year-old but released them at school without charges.
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The trio is accused of walking out of class along with more than 100 other students to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
Most of the students returned to class when they were told to do so, but district administrators said 30 to 40 kept walking to the football stadium.
That’s where deputies said School Resource Officers ordered them to go to the principal’s office. Most did, but deputies said three were defiant and damaged property.
In an effort to give context to the arrests, Coweta County School System sent Channel 2’s Courtney Francisco pictures of damaged fences around the school’s athletic buildings.
Public school walkouts are part of a trend Channel 2 Action News has been reporting since large groups of students started protesting ICE this year.
“The Supreme Court has said that there’s a lot of discretion left to schools to make sure and maintain order and to maintain the safety of the students,” said Immigration Attorney Joshua McCall.
McCall has been analyzing the protests. He said he supports the message, but students typically face consequences when protesting in this way.
“If something were to happen to the students after they walked out in one of these protests, the school may be financially liable for what happened to them,” said McCall.
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Coweta County Superintendent Dr. Evan Horton shared a statement on Friday.
“This isn’t about discriminating against students’ political viewpoints. Maintaining order during the school day and maintaining a proper focus on classroom learning is our duty as a school system,” he wrote
The school district said a handful of Northgate High School students also protested on Friday. However, they followed orders to return to class.
Horton called the actions at East Coweta High School appalling.
“There are proper places and times in our community where people can express their heartfelt political beliefs and demonstrate peacefully and respectfully. What I saw in some cases today is not what our schools are for or about,” said Horton.
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