Pro:
By Buster Baer
Staff Writer
On Wednesday, Sept. 5, a group of Costa seniors wore all white clothing to protest the effects of district negotiations on the senior class. The effort of students involved was a strong step toward useful, legitimate student activism.
In response to the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association’s organized suspension of voluntary duties, such as letters of recommendation and club sponsorship, students of the senior class communicated with each other via a Facebook group titled “walkout” after the group’s initial plan to leave class and sit in front of the administration office. The plan later developed into “Whiteout Wednesday” in which students involved would wear white shirts.
Eventually, the students involved decided the best course of action would be to show both sides of the negotiations that they were unhappy with their use as bargaining tools during the MBUTA and MBUSD negotiations. They came up with the plan and a small group of roughly 75 seniors wore white shirts, as well as Principal Dr. Ben Dale and even some members of the MBUTA. Just two days later, the two groups had reached a conclusion to the negotiations. The issue was settled and an agreement was made.
The political move of suspending voluntary duties on the part of the MBUTA was tactically smart, and they succeeded in their mission, aggravating members of the community and bringing attention to the issue. However it was wrong of the teachers to use the students as pawns in their debating tactics.
With First Amendment rights that protect freedom of speech, press and assembly, American citizens often find themselves angered into protest. Throughout American history, groups have protested topics such as suffrage rights for all genders and races as well as the recent Occupy Movement in almost every city. In any case, change takes a large amount of protest before it can have any effect. But even on a local level for Mira Costa, protesting has worked to preserve the students wishes in the past. During the 2006-07 school year, Principal Scott Wilbur attempted to eliminate teachers but failed due to the overpowering of student support at a Board of Trustees meeting.
The kind of positive contribution students brought to a district decision is applicable to the whiteout movement as well. In either case, students who cared deeply about an issue decided to make their opinion known. And while it may not be completely effective on every occasion, exercising their right to protest is very important for students.
Considering how effective student protest has been in the past and how well it was respected by members of the administration, such as Dale, and MBUTA members, the students should begin to exercise their right to free assembly more often.
The majority of the senior class was involved in the “Walk Out” Facebook group, and the fact that a large portion of these students actually participated in the whiteout is a crucial aspect of the whiteout’s success. The ability of the grade to come together with a single voice had a significant impact on the negotiations process and has the potential to act as a potent force in disputes involving students in the future.
Those who lessen the movement by stating that students have no say in negotiations don’t understand the true impact that students have in the Manhattan Beach community.
Critics of the movement claim that without an organized plan, the whiteout was useless. However, it is undeniable that as a unified group, the students grabbed the attention of the Board and the teachers.
Social science teacher and union negotiations team member Bill Fauver stated that he believed the students shortchanged themselves and that they truly have an immense amount of influence on their school and the community surrounding it.
Students have a say on campus, and they should speak up more often in favor of what they want to happen throughout the district.
Con:
By Christoph Neumann
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa senior class organized a protest on Sept. 5 to the teachers’ decision to refuse to write letters of recommendation. This movement, predominantly known as “Whiteout Wednesday,” was mired with a lack of participation and disunity, and it accomplished little to help bring an end to negotiations.
At the contract mediation on Sept. 6, the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association and the Manhattan Beach Unified School District’s Board of Trustees came to a tentative agreement on a new contract.
Leaders of the whiteout felt that this conclusion was achieved in part because of the movement. However, student disunity on the whiteout left some students involved confused about what the movement actually accomplished.
On the Facebook group for the whiteout, people disagreed about the form of protest, with ideas ranging from a class-wide walk out, to a day of silence, to the final white shirt protest. Instead of uniting seniors, the disagreement and confusion created disunity and provided many with an opportunity to potentially disrupt classroom activities.
This disunity, combined with the lack of a clear central goal within the movement, led to a lack of participation. Many seniors posted on the Facebook group saying that the movement was misguided and ill-informed, and it had a larger chance of making things worse.While the students’ actions may have been noticed by the student body, MBUSD, a major party in the negotiations, instead noticed the lack in student complaints and emails to the Board. Board President Ellen Rosenberg did not attribute the success of the mediation to the student movement.
The tentative end of the negotiations was the result of an accumulation of hard work put forth by the negotiating teams and the mass of parent complaints to the Board about MBUTA’s actions. The Board saw few complaints from students, with one of the only formal complaints being a speech by a student during the Sept. 5 Board meeting.
MBUTA Union negotiations team members Bill Fauver and Adam Gezci stated that they did not notice any dramatic reaction from the students besides a piqued interest in the situation involving the negotiations. Yet again, another major player in the contract negotiations failed to notice the whiteout protest.
Successful negotiations couldn’t have been facilitated by student action when two union negotiators didn’t even notice it. The lack of recognition highlights what little effect the whiteout had on negotiations.
Supporters of the whiteout cite Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale’s recognition through wearing a white tie and a white shirt on the day of the whiteout as proof of its effect on the negotiations. They believe that Dr. Dale’s participation in the movement shows that the students actions positively impacted the negotiations.
While it was respectable for Dale to recognize the movement, he is not a member of either negotiating team and is not a teacher or a member of the Board. Dale’s decision drew respect from students, but it had little impact on negotiations due to his official opinion of neutrality.
Students did have the ability to affect the process, but the whiteout was a misguided attempt at creating change. Had students reached out to Board members with feedback and concern, they would have had the potential to play a role in negotiations and have their voice heard as a collective group. Yet the unorganized “movement” that manifested itself as the whiteout did not have any impact on the eventual resolution of the dispute.
The whiteout movement suffered from disunity and a lack of recognition by the two parties involved in negotiations, stopping it from truly impacting the mediation. Instead, the negotiation teams rose above previous conflict and disagreements in order to reach a successful agreement.
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