The Bellevue School District in Washington state, which operates 28 schools with more than 19,000 students, told JNS that it is monitoring social media for outside agitators looking to influence students to participate in a walkouts on Oct. 7 in solidarity with Hamas.
Groups like Puget Sound Revolutionary Youth, which described the Oct. 7 terror attacks as “the heroic Palestinian resistance,” called on students to walk out of schools statewide for a third year.
“We are currently working and talking as an administration,” Janine Thorn, chief communications officer for the district, told JNS. “In the past, students have walked out. We are monitoring that closely and putting a plan in place.”
“Our current policy does not stop students from peacefully protesting,” she told JNS. “However, we know there are outside influences that are not sponsored or condoned by the district.”
Thorn said that the district’s team “is monitoring social media and reporting the information that we see being communicated not just to Bellevue students but to all students.”
“We see there’s some active mobilization happening with these outside groups, and we are in the process of developing our action plan,” she said.
In 2025, the group claimed that hundreds of students walked out of 32 schools across the state.
