Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia will now allow students to skip school to attend protests.
The new policy, which will go into effect on January 27, will allow students in grades 7-12 one excused absence per year for “civic engagement activities.”
“I think we’re setting the stage for the rest of the nation with this,” Fairfax School Board member Ryan McElveen, who introduced the policy, told The Washington Post. “It’s a dawning of a new day in student activism, and school systems everywhere are going to have to be responsive to it.”
Experts told the Post that it will most likely be students skipping school for leftist causes such as climate change and gun control instead of right-wing ones.
“People who call themselves conservatives probably do still count respecting authority — staying in school — as a crucial and central tenet of the social order,” said Thai Jones, a lecturer at Columbia University who studies radical social movements.
Still, the school system claims that they will be neutral and impartial about what causes the students can cut class for.
The students will have to fill out a form two days in advance of their planned protest and explain the reason why. They will also be required to obtain permission from a parent or guardian and stop by the school at least once briefly on the day of their absence.
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