Lubbock ISD, in its infinite wisdom and boundless empathy, has decided that the biggest threat facing our youth right now isn’t the looming fear of their families being torn apart by ICE raids—it’s the catastrophic danger of unexcused absences. As students across the nation (and even here in the Hub City) plan walkouts to protest aggressive new deportation policies and the recent killing of civilians by federal agents, LISD has released a statement that essentially reads: “We don’t care about your civil rights, but we do care about our attendance funding.”
The context, which the district conveniently glossed over, is that teenagers are terrified. They’re watching news of family separations and militarized crackdowns, and they want to show solidarity with their classmates who might come home to an empty house. But according to LISD’s latest missive, the real tragedy would be stepping off the sidewalk. They’ve warned that leaving campus means entering a lawless void where “safety cannot be guaranteed”—a stark contrast to the safety they apparently guarantee inside, where the only danger is dying of boredom or standardized testing anxiety.
To really drive the point home, the district leaned heavily on threats from their overlords at the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The message is loud and clear: Any student who walks out gets a black mark on their record, and any teacher who so much as nods sympathetically at a protest sign could lose their license. It’s a masterclass in bureaucratic bullying, ensuring that while the world burns, LISD students will remain seated, silent, and compliant.
Because nothing says “we value student safety” like threatening to ruin a kid’s academic future for caring about their neighbors’ actual lives.