The kids are not alright.

They are mad. They are hurt. They are dejected.

They also support their teachers.

A bold band of Dos Pueblos High School student leaders are planning a walkout for this Friday to support teachers who are locked in a battle with the Santa Barbara Unified School District administration over pay.

Earlier this week, the students launched an Instagram page promoting the walkout. There will be no surprises when several hundred students are expected to leave campus after first period about 9:49 a.m. Friday and march to Girsh Park, nearly two miles away.

“I am livid,” Valeria Tiburcio Romo, the high school’s ASB class president and a first-generation student, told Noozhawk on Wednesday. “I don’t understand how this can happen. Our teachers go above and beyond.”

On Nov. 15, teachers decided to stop hosting clubs during the lunch hour. A teacher needs to be present in a classroom for students to hold club meetings.

“Clubs are one of the most important ways that students can express themselves, to find communities that are more impactful to them,” said Aidan Myers, Dos Pueblos senior class president. “High school has a ton of people, so it’s really nice to have a smaller group of people that either share your interests or have similar talents.”

Myers, who called teachers “a second family,” said a lot of students right now are “feeling lost.”

Teachers are also no longer providing one-on-one tutoring during lunch hours.

“That affects a lot of low-income students who can’t afford to look for tutors elsewhere,” said Tiburcio Romo, who can no longer see her math teacher for tutoring.

Some special events that require teachers to help also are no longer happening.

Lukas Ginder, Dos Pueblos activities commissioner, said the school does two or three outside-of-school activities per week. They were planning a post-game party this week, but won’t be able to do it.

“Now that the teachers are striking for their righteous cause — they deserve to be paid fairly — we can’t do a PGP because we’re not going to ask our teachers and staff to volunteer after school hours when they are not getting paid to do that,” Ginder said. “We can’t do as many activities. We can’t do any activities outside of school hours.”

Myers said the teachers are doing what they have to do for fair pay, and the walkout is “what we have to do.”

So, how did we get here?

Santa Barbara Unified underpaid teachers by $6.7 million last year and has sought a waiver from the state, saying the situation was the result of COVID-19 funding that skewed funding ratios.

The Santa Barbara Teachers Association wants greater pay and benefits, citing the high cost of living on the South Coast.

The district said in a news release this week it was offering a “compensation package” estimated to be equal to a 19% raise over two years. Hosby Galindo, SBTA president, said the offer “falls short of what students and teachers need.”

Friday’s walkout is well-known to the administration.

The DP administration team met with the DPHS student organizers to “create a plan to balance both the support of student First Amendment rights with safety during the demonstration and walkout,” Principal Bill Woodard said.

“While we cannot support a student walkout, we do support our students in making their voices heard and participating in their community in a variety of ways,” Woodard said. “We encourage students to do their research, ask questions, and engage in both local and global issues that are important to them as they learn to become informed and productive citizens.”

Students who decide to walk out will be given an unexcused absence. At Girsh Park, students will give speeches before heading back to campus. The march will include members of the campus administration, campus safety personnel and school resources sheriff’s deputy George Hedricks.

The student leaders put out QR forms with links to Google forms where students could write in their student testimonies and share their experiences about how they have been affected by the labor dispute.

Classes will continue for students who choose not to participate in the walkout.

Tiburcio Romo encouraged students to have an open conversation with their parents about what is happening and how “my teachers who are looking after me every day are struggling.”

The idea for a walkout originated with the ASB cabinet discussing ways to support teachers, and then on Monday, Ginder got a burst of creativity.

“In a joking way, I stood on a desk, and I said, ‘You know what? Let’s do it. I am putting my foot down. Let’s do a walkout.'”

He stepped off the desk and said to himself, “That’s a really good idea.”

He spoke with Myers and Tiburcio Romo, and the walkout was born.

“We didn’t want to go the private way,” Myers said. “We wanted to be very clear with our intentions. This isn’t a quick walkout. This is thought-through. There’s an issue. This is what we can do. This is what students can do. Let’s accomplish something and be part of a bigger cause.”