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Aptos High student protest gets out of hand
Saturday February 01, 2003
APTOS, Calif. (AP) Hundreds of Aptos High School students,
including some who had been studying civil disobedience, walked out
of school Friday morning to protest the fact they can't leave
campus for lunch.
``I'm a student, not a prisoner,'' said one protester, James
Pea, 16.
Some students blocked roads when the protest began around 7:30
a.m., but by noon only 20 of the 200 protesters remained, according
to Santa Cruz County sheriff's spokesman Kim Allyn. The rest walked
off campus or returned to class.
``You know how much this is costing us? About $2,000 an hour and
it has been going on all morning,'' Allyn said. ``Too bad they are
not taxpayers right now.''
Some of the students who walked out of school are enrolled in a
class that had studied civil disobedience Monday, including Gandhi
and Henry David Thoreau.
The teacher, Bob Rosengard, said he has been teaching the topic
at the school for 30 years, and a protest has never been the
result.
Twenty deputies were dispatched to monitor the protest and the
department had to call in other deputies to cover service calls,
Allyn said.
Allyn said deputies issued several citations for trespassing and
released the students to their parents.
Some protesters complained about the quality of the lunches as
much as the requirement that students stay on campus to eat.
``There is an obesity problem in the United States, and they are
doing nothing about it,'' said Reina Fleck, 15. ``We have burritos,
pizza, chips and doughnuts. The healthiest thing here is a salad.''
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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