A student-organized protest that had been planned at Southeast High School on Wednesday afternoon was forestalled by the high school’s principal, Eric Yarbrough, who met with the group and explained his concerns about the timing and safety.
Two Southeast students earlier this week posted their plans to hold a walkout at 2:35 p.m. Wednesday afternoon on Instagram, Yarbrough said in an impromptu interview with The Alamance News at the high school on Wednesday afternoon.
Calling themselves “voicesofsoutheast,” the two student organizers had intended to protest “and bring attention to our school community’s perspective” on immigration enforcement operations recently conducted in North Carolina and throughout the country by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Though other N.C. public school students – mainly in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Wake, and Durham public school systems – have recently staged walkouts to protest ICE operations, Yarbrough said this was the first time he’d gotten wind of one planned at Southeast. He has served as principal since the newest high school opened along N.C. Highway 119 in Mebane in August 2023…