TUSD students boycott school for 1-day ethnic studies classes
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About 70 TUSD students skipped their regular classes Tuesday, instead attending the “School of Ethnic Studies.”
The “School of Ethnic Studies” was organized by UNIDOS, a group formed by Mexican American Studies students in 2010.
The event was in response to the elimination of the classes on Jan. 10 after state schools chief John Huppenthal said the district would lose millions in state funding because the courses were illegal.
The group called the effort “the first steps to reclaiming our education.”
“For one day, students get to choose where they obtain their education,” UNIDOS leaders said in a Facebook posting. “And if it’s taken away from them inside the institution, we as a community have the right to create it elsewhere.”
Community members, college professors and Mexican American Studies alumni spoke to the students in between break-out sessions and entertainment acts at El Casino Ballroom, 437 E. 26th St.
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U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus education task force, sent a letter Monday to top federal education officials urging an investigation of whether an Arizona state law violates federal standards by targeting TUSD’s Mexican American Studies program.
The letter, sent to assistant secretary of education for civil rights Russlynn Ali and other officials and co-signed by caucus Chairman Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-Texas, calls the Arizona law, which targets the TUSD program, “bad public policy and fundamentally flawed,” especially as it has been applied in targeting and shutting down the MAS program.
“Using the law to attack the MAS Program, with its proven educational successes, will only serve to exacerbate the already harmful anti-Latino sentiment in Arizona,” the letter reads.
Daniel Montoya, left, stands by the door to check in Tucson Unified School District students as they arrive at El Casino Ballroom for the special ethnic studies classes on Tuesday. TUSD students were asked to boycott their regular classes to attend the special event. BENJIE SANDERS / ARIZONA DAILY STAR