PORT TOWNSEND — For many students, a mostly deserted Port Townsend High School campus presented a surreal scene Tuesday morning after protesting teachers called in sick and classes were canceled.
Some students chose to stay and study for next week’s final exams.
Other lingered, waiting for rides from parents.
“It’s all right. Free day off school,” said junior Wally Patter, who stayed on campus with his friend, Will Simcoe, also a junior.
“We came and there is a sign on the door — ‘Seniors and juniors can leave’ — and that was it.”
As usual, school buses delivered students to school before 8 a.m.
When school administrators decided to call off the school day, buses had already left or were on the way to transport students at other Jefferson County schools.
School officials allowed seniors and juniors to leave, and offered all students an option to use the library for studies.
Sophomores and freshmen needed their parents’ permission to leave.
‘Pretty chaotic’
Sophomore Rebekah Logue left school, then returned to pick up examination study notes.
“It was interesting coming to school and not seeing our teachers,” Logue said.
“It was pretty chaotic. They told us that the teachers were sick.”
All 35 teachers called in sick in protest of the School Board’s insistence that high school Athletic Director Russ Hickman resign as boys basketball coach after a recent courtside incident involving his players.
