Ohio student suspended for staying in class during walkouts

HILLIARD, Ohio – An Ohio high school student says he tried to remain nonpolitical during school walkouts over gun violence and was suspended for a day because he stayed in a classroom instead of joining protests or the alternative, a study hall.

Hilliard senior Jacob Shoemaker says school isn't the place for politics, and he wasn't taking sides Wednesday.

The district says it's responsible for students' safety and they can't be unsupervised. Jacob's citation for not following instructions was shared online by a friend, prompting a flood of messages to his father.

Scott Shoemaker says some people thought his son was suspended for walking out, and angry comments accumulated, including some that mistook Scott for the principal. He says he also got a couple death threats and had to consider switching phone numbers.

I see a lot of people impugning this kid, they should be praising him, IMO.

Having him go sit in a study hall and do what he wants (play video games on his phone or whatever) while the other students get to go outside with teachers and engage in that CRAP on time that we pay the teachers to TEACH and kids to be TAUGHT is an irritant to me, and it should be to all of us.

Yeah. He could have been a sheep and gone outside in the sun and just hung out. Or he could have gone into the study hall and stared at the wall.

If it had been me, I hated high school with a passion. But I went, every day, because I would have had to answer to my parents if I hadn't. Never skipped a day, ever.

If I had been forced to choose between those two things, I would have been angry about it. If I didn't say (and probably wouldn't have since I was so introverted) "I am angry about having to be here to begin with. That I am forced to waste my time on the taxpayer dime really pisses me off", I would have most certainly felt it.

I think his issue is more than "having to go to study hall". If they sue, and there is a GoFundMe, I am paying.

Life is unfair. How we deal with that unfairness defines us.

No shit.

I did not say he was wrong in his belief, only that he should have known there would be consequences of his action.

Didn't say you did.

He choose to stay in a empty classroom rather then go to a room that was being provided. The school punished him for that, not his views

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. They made an example of him because he didn't condone the circus show the faculty assembled. Faculty that should have been in class earning the tax payer provided salaries.

Had he grabbed his little red book and marched with the useful idiots outside it would have been fine.

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