In mid-September, the Los Angeles Unified School District notified Christina Gutierrez (better known as Miss G. to her students) that she would be laid off from Hamilton High School due to low seniority. For Gutierrez, the news came as a unwanted surprise. "I felt railroaded," she told the Los Angeles Times. "I saw something in the mail and my heart dropped."
However, for the students at Hamilton High, her removal from the school became an opportunity to forcefully, yet peacefully, let their voices be heard. On her last day of work, 500 students of this culturally diverse school (44% of the student body is Hispanic, 33% Black, 17% White and 5% Asian) organized a sit-in protest as a means of communicating their disapproval of the decision reached.
