Well, pack it up, kids. Our fearless leaders in Austin have decided that the most dangerous thing in a Texas classroom isn’t a lack of air conditioning or a crumbling ceiling—it’s a student with an opinion and a pair of walking shoes. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) just dropped a “guidance” memo that reads less like school policy and more like a hostage negotiation, warning districts that if they so much as blink while students walk out to protest, the state is coming for their school boards.
This all started because some students in Austin and San Antonio had the audacity to protest federal immigration actions. Governor Abbott saw a video of Austin ISD police making sure children didn’t get flattened by traffic and naturally interpreted “keeping kids alive” as “state-sponsored insurrection.” Now, Education Commissioner Mike Morath is authorized to play repo-man, threatening to replace elected local boards with state-appointed managers if a school district acts too “facilitated” toward student activism.
The irony is richer than a Jones AT&T Stadium suite. The TEA’s press release claims they want to protect “critical thinking skills,” which is a fascinating way to describe a policy that punishes schools for students actually using them. If a teacher gets caught looking too supportive, they could lose their license. If a district doesn’t physically tackle a teenager headed for the exit, they lose their funding. It’s the Texas way: local control is a sacred right, right up until you do something the state capital doesn’t like.
Meanwhile, over in Hays CISD, things got messy when a couple of kids were arrested and a teacher was ousted for holding a sign with a “bad word.” Abbott called it “chaos,” because nothing says “educational stability” like the state government threatening to bankrupt your local school because a 16-year-old held a poster board.
Isn’t it great to know that in a state where we can’t figure out how to keep the lights on in February, we have plenty of energy to micro-manage exactly which sidewalk a high schooler is allowed to stand on?
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/03/texas-education-agency-student-walkouts-guidance/