Dozens of Torrance Student Protesters Suspended : Education: Brunt of discipline falls on students at North High. Protests at four high schools backed teachers’ contract demands.

Dozens of Torrance high school students have been suspended in the wake of walkouts Friday and Tuesday supporting their teachers’ position in contract talks.

The protests at the district’s four high schools were followed by two-day suspensions of “at least 20 students” at North High School and shorter suspensions of five students at West High School, said school board President David Sargent. No one was suspended at South High or Torrance High, he said.

The disciplinary action followed student protests that lasted up to three hours. Students said they wanted to draw attention to what they see as the district’s unfair treatment of teachers, who have been working without a contract since June 30.

A Torrance Unified School District official could not confirm how many students have been suspended but said figures might be available Friday. Several school officials said the protests escalated because of media attention.

Teachers’ union officials said that they do not sanction the walkouts and that teachers did not incite students to leave class. An estimated 50 students did join teachers Monday night when the union picketed the Board of Education’s regular session.

The walkouts began Friday when hundreds of students left their third-period classes at West High School. On Tuesday morning, about 100 students milled around in front of South High School but returned to classes by 1 p.m. Later Tuesday, 75 to 100 students could be seen outside North High School. Conflicting accounts were given about what happened Tuesday at Torrance High School, though no major walkout occurred.

Neither school officials nor police, who were at the campuses on the days of the protests, provided estimates of how many students participated.

Several North High School students said they were informed in telephone calls to their homes Tuesday evening that they were suspended for two days. As many as 35 or 40 North High students were suspended, they said, because of the Tuesday walkout, which lasted about three hours. The five West High students were permitted back in class Wednesday after parent conferences, students said.

Two school officials criticized the walkouts.

“We do believe instructional class time is very valuable and very precious,” said Gail Wickstrom, assistant superintendent for educational services.

Sargent said: “There are rules to the game. And walking out of class and inciting others to do the same violates them.”

At North High, where students staged the second walkout Tuesday morning and the suspensions were concentrated, students reacted with shock.

“I don’t think it’s right. We were trying to help,” said Angela Begnaud, 15, a sophomore who said she was notified Tuesday evening of her two-day suspension.

Sophomore Jarrod Soules, 16, said he was informed at school Wednesday morning that he was suspended until Friday. Soules, the only student quoted in a short item in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, said an administrator at the school referred to the quote when calling him in to be suspended.

The administrator “said, ‘Since you were quoted in the newspaper, do you want to go first?’ ” Soules recalled.

About 35 to 40 North High students have been suspended, according to Soules and others.

“It seems like too many kids to suspend,” he said.

The protest at North varied in tone. Students at one point ran or marched up and down the sidewalk, but they also sat quietly on the lawn and talked among themselves or with the press.

Several students said they had not engaged in any kind of political action before, but felt their teachers should earn more money.

Senior Sharon Edwards, 17, a varsity pep squad member, wore her royal blue and white uniform as she and about 50 other students gathered quietly on the 182nd Street side of North High. She said she was concerned about how administrators would react to the protest.

Tuesday evening, she was among those suspended. Edwards said North High Principal Peggy Tremayne called her father and said she had been running through the school halls and banging on windows.

“I will promise, I will swear, I never hit a window. I never ran through halls,” Edwards said.

But Edwards said she doubts that she can challenge Tremayne’s account of her actions. “I can’t give them any proof I wasn’t there,” she said.

Others said there was some rowdiness, including window slapping, but “a couple of kids told them to stop . . . and they stopped,” said Becky Carino, 14, a freshman who said she was suspended for two days.

Edwards’ mother, Joan, supported her daughter, saying students have a right to express themselves, especially since they do not have the right to vote.

“I’m not real upset,” Joan Edwards said of the suspension. “I don’t think she did anything maliciously or anything against the law. She voiced her opinion.”

However, Wickstrom said students were not being suspended simply because they walked out of class. She said those being suspended are probably “youngsters who organized it and did further disruption.”

Several North High students said school administrators photographed them with instant cameras during the protest.

Tremayne did not return telephone calls Wednesday, nor did the principals at West and South high schools.

During the protest Tuesday, Tremayne sat briefly on the lawn with students. She urged them to return to school and write letters in support of the teachers.

She looked around her and asked, “How many of you would consider going back to class and putting this all behind you?”

No one responded.

Tremayne told the students that their gathering “appears like a party.” A few minutes later, she told a reporter: “They’re mad at me, but I’m going to say it again. They’re having a party. They’re having fun.”

Wickstrom said the protests varied from school to school. “It was a very different kind of situation in terms of the student leadership, the physical layouts of the campuses,” she said, citing reports that at North High protesters attempted to disrupt classes.

At Torrance High School, about 20 students tried to leave classes Tuesday, “but they were asked to go back to class,” said Principal Joseph Rotcher.

Rena Blanco, 17, said she and four other West High students were allowed to return to classes Wednesday after they and their parents met with administrators. Sargent described the disciplinary action at West High as a “brief suspension until parent conferences.”

Torrance school board rules state that a student can be suspended if the superintendent or principal determines that the student has “disrupted school activities or otherwise willfully defied the valid authority of supervisors, teachers, administrators, school officials, or other school personnel engaged in the performance of their duties.”