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

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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 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 belong,” they continued.

Edwards also accused certain board members of displaying hostility toward LGBTQ students.

“It’s no secret that the flag came down because of homophobic sentiments, and the way that some board members discussed the issue was extremely insensitive and oftentimes offensive,” she said.

But school board President David Bell defended the policy, insisting the district must treat all students equally.

“Our job as trustees is to represent all students equally, a principle that runs throughout our board philosophy policy,” Bell said during the Oct. 8 meeting, according to The Press Democrat.

“When the flag went up in 2019, no process was created for any other group to apply,” he added. “What was called inclusion became, in practice, exclusion of all but one group.”

Bell joined trustees Jason Lehman and Catrina Landry in approving the restrictions, while Anne Ching and Gerardo Guzman opposed them.

The latest clash comes months after Bell ordered the Pride flag removed in January.

It was restored four days later following a backlash and concerns that Bell had acted without consulting the full board.

Critics now accuse the board’s majority of rushing through the new restrictions before December, when a newly elected trustee is expected to take office.

Monday marks the flag’s final scheduled day flying under the previous arrangement.

Tuesday’s planned walkout could turn the quiet Sonoma Valley community into the latest California battleground over Pride flags in public schools.

Similar controversies have already erupted in districts including Temecula Valley Unified, Chino Valley Unified and Sunol Glen.

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