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Eighth-grade students stage walkout

Kids asked principal for permission

Despite initial information that walkouts were planned Election Day in the Altoona Area and Hollidaysburg Area school districts over issues including gun violence, no one walked out at either district, school officials said.

However, about a dozen 13-year-olds at Penn Cambria Middle School conducted a walkout in regard to President Donald Trump’s actions affecting transgender rights.

The Human Rights Campaign, touting a membership more than 3 million members and a position as the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization, called the 2018 midterm election “one of the most important elections in our lifetimes.”

Penn Cambria eighth-graders who felt strongly about transgender rights walked out of class Tuesday morning, Principal Dane Harrold said.

“A couple of students said they wanted to do the walk out I said I’d like them to do it where they are safe, inside the school,” Harrold said.

“A dozen students went to the cafeteria at 10 a.m,” he said. “I was proud. They really don’t need a principal’s permission, but they came to ask me, and I do appreciate that. When things like this occur, you often wonder if they were doing it for right reasons and not doing it just to do it. Those students who walked out have beliefs that they are strong about. And others stayed back.”

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