Walkouts at two schools target district’s response

Justin Murphy – Rochester Democrat and Chronicle USA TODAY NETWORK – in the D&C on 9/30/21 on page A1

Several hundred high school students in Pittsford walked out of class Wednesday morning to protest what they called an ineffectual response to recurring racist incidents in the district.

The most recent such incident was a video by a Pittsford Sutherland student where he pulled an air gun from his waistband and said he carried it to “kill (racial slur).” It circulated widely among students over the weekend.

At about the same time, the district learned of a text message exchange among middle school students about enrolling Black people in “slave training” so they could “be on the field working like (expletive)s should.”