Following an anti-ICE walkout by roughly 50 Yelm High School (YHS) students around 9:40 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12, the four present members at the Yelm Community Schools (YCS) Board of Directors meeting weighed in on the protest that occurred earlier in the day.
Denise Hendrickson, the first of four school board members to speak on the topic — as school board director Frank King was absent from the meeting — said that she would love to sit down and have a conversation with the students who walked out from YHS.
Hendrickson prefaced that she wants to have that conversation as a citizen of the United States and as a veteran of the United States military. She said she would “give them the other side of the story” to their protesting, and why they’re able to freely march through Yelm holding up their signs.
“I would love to sit and talk with them and give them the other side of the story as someone who signed a check that doesn’t ever expire in their life, and let them know why they’re able to do that,” Hendrickson said. “I’ll talk to them anytime. As a veteran, I’ve given them that right to do that.”
Ryan Jewell first thanked Chris Woods, YCS superintendent, for sending out emails and notices to families during the evening hours of Wednesday, Feb. 11 — as the district learned of the planned protest “last minute.”
“We have a great community, and there’s a lot of opinions and not a lot of facts,” Jewell said. “We’re making an effort to get the correct information out. If there’s questions, I’d like to call on our community to route them back to the district. I had one phone call today from an upset individual and it ended rather quickly. They were pleased with the conversation. I find that happens more often than not.”
The board member added that there’s a lot of work to do in Yelm. In the two-and-a-half months that Jewell has been on the board, he said his effort has been spent on putting out fires and addressing a bunch of “garbage information.”
“There is a large community here that cares deeply. I would encourage you to not be silent,” Jewell said. “We don’t need to be getting into fights, bashing and saying ugly things. Be respectful. Be kind. But please speak up. If you don’t have the information, direct them back to the people who do have the information so facts can be delivered so we can get back to the very, very, very important work that we have in Yelm.”
YCS Board President Casey Shaw said, as far as the community goes, that it’s one he grew up in and one that he loves — and a town he’s spent his entire life in.
“I got a lot of calls yesterday, and a lot of calls in the morning. I had to step out of work and I called Chris immediately with what I was hearing,” Shaw said. “I was extremely impressed with Chris’s response and the high school admin’s response to the information that was being sent out.”
Shaw added that he was receiving information about the walkout live, as he has a friend whose child attends YHS. Additionally, he said he went online during his lunch break and witnessed “pure chaos” about the protest on social media.
“This probably isn’t for the people in this room — because the people in this room aren’t the ones that are on social media all the time — but if we would take half of the time and energy we spent arguing on social media and actually put it back into our kids and into the people of this community, this community would be thriving,” Shaw said.
Shaw added that you cannot let politics consume your life, and points to the past eight to 16 years and the division that’s exploded during that timeframe.
“We’re so sure we’re right that we’re willing to fight about it, and we’re not raising a new generation to critically think and reach across the aisle,” Shaw said. “It’s OK to be different. It’s OK to have different beliefs, but it’s not OK to behave the way we’re behaving. If we’re going to get this thing back, we’ve got to start working together — regardless of political affiliation or belief — and fix this thing. Otherwise, it’s not going to be fixed.”
School board member Bill Hauss believes that a lot of the students who participated in the walk out probably wanted to get out of school for a little while and didn’t really care about the cause.
“My other thought about it is if they want to protest, they can do it after school, before school or on the weekends,” Hauss said. “I’m fine with that.”
