The wave of student walkouts called “ICE out” has parents and conservatives alarmed as public schools appear to be hosting political protests during instructional time, raising questions about safety, literacy, and the role of teachers and unions in encouraging activism. This piece examines a viral video of a mother confronting school officials, the spread of protests across multiple states, the poor academic outcomes in many districts, and why these events are pushing more families toward school choice.
“Guess what?” the original commentator asked, and parents around the country are answering the same way as they see kids mobilized in front of school buildings on weekdays. A mother’s viral clip captured the fear many feel when she declared, “I’m here to pull my child from the school right now,” and later said, “I thought my daughter was safe here. I guess not.” Those lines cut through the spin and show a parent reacting to chaos where children should be supervised and learning.
The protests that began in one state have now cropped up in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Rhode Island, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah and Oregon, with teachers and unions often lending support. The National Education Association promoted nationwide action, and local unions pushed pickets that schools turned into remote learning days or mass walkouts. What looks like political theater to many observers has been treated as an acceptable use of school time by some administrators and staff.
At the same time, academic performance in many of these districts is grim, with less than half of students meeting proficiency levels on recent statewide testing in reading and math. If a school cannot deliver basic literacy and numeracy, handing over the school day to political demonstrations feels like a betrayal of its core mission. Parents are rightly asking whether the priorities of public education have shifted from academics to activism.
The optics are striking: students chanting slogans, spilling into traffic, and sometimes facing confrontations with law enforcement on a day when classes should be in session. Critics point out that these scenes are not a replacement for structured civic instruction taught in a classroom setting. Civic engagement can be age appropriate, but what we are seeing now resembles coercion more than education.
Conservative frustration is boiling over because this pattern repeats other recent trends where progressive politics were introduced into schools without broad parent consent. From ideological lessons about gender and identity to classroom activism, the feeling among many families is that public education has become a vehicle for adult agendas. That loss of confidence helps explain why school choice interest has surged and why many parents say they will never send their children back to certain public schools.
Unions and some teachers defend these walkouts as student-led and rooted in compassion, but union endorsements and teacher participation blur that claim. When adults coordinate, promote, or excuse mass absence from class, it is hard to call the resulting event a purely student-driven exercise. Parents do not want their children used as props in political campaigns during school hours.
There is also the safety angle. Videos show crowds near roads and chaotic scenes at school entrances, which exposes kids to danger and creates emotional trauma for families. A mother captured on video mentioning her child by name and wanting to remove her illustrates the panic these events provoke. Public schools should be safe havens, not flashpoints for flash mobs.
Policy responses are emerging as parents demand action. Some districts are reconsidering how protest activities are handled, and lawmakers at the state level are hearing from voters who want clearer rules about political activities during instructional hours. Meanwhile, school choice options like charter schools, vouchers, and homeschooling get stronger support from families seeking environments focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic rather than political mobilization.
At the heart of this debate is a simple question: what is a school for? If the answer is to educate children to read, think critically, and participate responsibly in civic life, then handing weekdays over to partisan demonstrations fails that test. Parents across the political spectrum are waking up to a reality where, as one commentator put it, “THEY CAME FOR THE KIDS … AGAIN,” and many are making choices to protect their children from what they see as ideological capture of the classroom.
