UVALDE — On April 14, 1970, 16-year-old Rebecca Ciprian sat at her desk at Uvalde High School, half paying attention to her English teacher and anxiously awaiting a knock on the classroom door.
Around 9 a.m., student Alfredo Santos knocked, opened the door and nodded his head to the roughly 30 students inside. Nearly all of them stood and walked out, Ciprian, who now goes by Ciprian-Moreno, remembers, as their teacher repeatedly yelled, “If you all walk out, you’re all going to fail.”
The walkout was prompted after the white principal of Robb Elementary recommended that the school board not renew the contract of fifth grade teacher Josué “George” Garza — one of the few Hispanic and bilingual teachers in the district. For them, it was a final insult after years of discrimination by school staff who punished students for speaking Spanish or made fun of them as they learned English.
