Three UCA students were arrested Nov. 8 during a demonstration at a Conway School Board meeting, and Conway High School cracked down on student protests that involved a walkout earlier in the day.
The three UCA students were arrested for trespassing and refusal to disperse after chanting and refusing to leave the Conway Public Schools administration office building’s lobby, according to the police report.
At least a handful of CHS students said they were suspended for five days for insubordination the day after their walkout. Students suspended for the walkout will now miss over 33 hours of school as punishment for missing 40 minutes of their seventh period, according to their discipline notices.
The UCA students, junior Alex Barnett, 20, nontraditional student Colburn Clark, 32, and freshman Keylen Botley, 18, were part of a group that chanted “trans lives matter” about 30 minutes into the meeting.
The protesters were in the foyer because the meeting room was full, but police ordered everyone to leave after the chanting began.
“We were willing to get arrested if that’s what it took. Our main goal was to try and keep the school board from conducting business, and to keep this issue in the press,” Barnett said.
The board went into recess in response to the chanting but continued the meeting after shutting the door less than 10 minutes later.
In a Nov. 10 internal email addressed to school district staff, Superintendent Jeff Collum said, “I want to be sure you have facts and not just rumors.
“After repeated requests for quiet to the crowd, administrators asked law enforcement to clear the lobby and remove disrupters,” Collum said in the email. “We learned the three individuals arrested were not from Conway. They were from Little Rock, Bentonville and Mayflower.”
Clark, an Army veteran, said that he’s lived in the county for over three years, and in Conway for more than a year.
“Saying we aren’t from Conway is defamatory and an attempt to distract educators from the fact the Conway Public Schools Board of Education is putting transgender students at risk for their own benefit,” Clark said, referring to a Harvard School of Public Health survey that showed transgender teens with restrictive bathroom policies face a higher risk of sexual assault.
In last month’s meeting, at the high school’s auditorium, the Conway School Board passed policies to restrict students’ bathroom usage and overnight trip arrangements to students’ sex assigned at birth.
“Policies 4.20 and 4.56.2 are in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Clark, a member of UCA’s Young Democratic Socialists, said.
As the Arkansas Times reported, before the board’s unanimous passage of the two policies Oct. 11, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas sent two letters warning the district of potentially expensive litigation and poor mental health outcomes for students. The district’s attorney dismissed the letters, citing a “political agenda.”
Before the board’s Nov. 8 evening meeting, some Conway High students walked out of the building at 2:30 p.m. to protest the policies with the help of local organizers like the UCA Young Democratic Socialists Club.
Barnett, the president of the club, was present at the walkout, where student demonstrators left their classrooms to stand outside with signs and pride flags.
He said some members of the club showed up to support the cause, but they didn’t help plan anything.
“A kid who goes to school here contacted me and said that they wanted to do a walkout,” Barnett said. “They asked for advice on how to organize, asking for help getting the word out about everything.”
Though they were given in-school suspension, some CHS students told The Echo they have to spend the punishment at home.
Hannah Lopas, who is in the 11th grade, said she was suspended for truancy and insubordination.
“Insubordination, because the principal made an announcement saying that we shouldn’t walk out or leave campus, but I did it anyway,” she said.
“My parents are proud of me,” Lopas said. “I got their permission to do the protest, and they’re happy I’m standing up for my beliefs.”
Another student, Cody Corner, was also suspended. He’s never had in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension before, but he said he expected it.
“Part of it was knowing I was going to get in trouble; however, the protest was way more important. I’m glad I got to go out there and support, even though I’m suspended,” Corner said.
During sixth period Nov. 8, CHS Principal Buck Bing said over the intercom that students will face “school consequences” and “possible citations of disrupting the educational environment” for not staying in class.
“If any person is doing otherwise, they will be considered a disruption to our normal school processes and potentially insubordinate or even subversive,” Bing said in a Nov. 8 TikTok video posted by user @Layalaine.
The ACLU of Arkansas’ website has guidance for student walkouts that states, while schools can discipline students for missing class, “what [schools] can’t do is discipline you more harshly because of the political nature of or the message behind your action.”
According to the Conway Public Schools Student Handbook, the minimum punishment for insubordination is a reprimand or parent conference, and the minimum punishment for truancy is a conference, warning or parent notification. The maximum for each is expulsion, and in-school suspension, respectively.