K-12 Student Walkout and Protest Tracker

Executive Summary

The following list tracks K-12 student walkouts and protests from 2021 to the present. Each documented event includes the state, school district, school (when it can be identified), and the reason or cause behind the protest. Additionally included is any student club or outside activist nonprofit that has been documented to have led and/or helped to organize the walkout or protest, or in some cases provided material support such as signs and event promotion on social media.

Walkout/protest causes include– but are not limited to–Palestine, gun control, climate change, school funding, MeToo/ sexual assault, and anti-Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) actions.

In order to track these events, Defending Education used social media posts, news articles, and press releases to validate information to the best of our ability. If we had doubt about the information’s authenticity or felt the source made it difficult to validate the event, we did not include it in this tracker.

NUMBER OF STUDENT WALKOUTS/ PROTESTS BY YEAR:

• 2021: 1
• 2022: 58
• 2023: 36
• 2024: 26
• 2025: 59
• 2026: 422

*The total listed is on the low end of the overall number of schools that had student walkouts/ protests due to many news articles not listing names of specific schools that participated.

KANSAS STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

In 2026, the Kansas legislature passed House Bill 2513 which included Section 88(m) that establishes rules and reporting procedures for addressing student walkouts. The bill states that the Kansas State Department of Education will “establish a complaint process and penalty for any public school district that: (1) Experiences a student walkout and fails to obtain written parental consent for each absent student to leave the school building; (2) fails to enforce school attendance laws and policies with associated disciplinary actions for such absent students; and (3) has staff encourage, facilitate or enable such student walkout.”

Prior Research and Reports

Below is a list of research and reports that Defending Education has produced that gives background information related to student protests and walkouts.

• A Sunrise Movement training guidebook calls for students to ‘take action monthly’ to ‘disrupt business as usual’ to bring about a ‘political revolution’
• NEA President Becky Pringle joins Sunrise Movement’s “Roadmap to Political Revolution” event series
• Group messages and training documents suggest K-12 student ICE protests in Minnesota may be organized by Sunrise Movement and its members, including current Ivy League student with ties to past campus encampments
• School Clubs Sponsored by Organizations that Have Taken a Stand against Israel
• Chicago Teachers Union provides members with ‘Sanctuary Schools and Sanctuary Employer’ guidance, includes a ‘CTU Sanctuary Toolkit 2025’ and soft lockdown slide presentation for students.
• A May Day 2026 Host Toolkit includes training information for a “coordinated day of action” and promotes tactics such as a school ‘walk-in’; NEA provided $1.7M in funding to organization involved with training.
• Newly obtained slides from a Sunrise Movement membership meeting calls for a ‘political revolution’ that includes the ‘need to structurally change the foundations of this country’ to achieve ‘Eco-socialism, [a] multi-racial democracy, and Green New Deal legislation’
• United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) planning documents and materials appear to advocate for use of school resources as ‘form of resistance’ against ICE; promote ‘engaging students in community self-defense’ by offering ‘service learning hours’
• Sunrise Movement and Young Democratic Socialists of America published guides urging students to organize campus disruptions and overnight protests to advance political revolution
• Unearthed documents show Minnesota activist group promoted “school, neighbor, and parent alert groups,” outlined “threat of occupation” steps, and was affiliated with and funded by a Minnesota teachers union, with guidance from the Chicago Teachers Union

School Districts

This is not a comprehensive list and will be updated with corroborated information over time.