Porum Students Walk Out Of Class In Protest Of New Superintendent Hire

Dozens of students in Porum walked out of class on Wednesday to protest the high school principal not being offered the job of superintendent.

The students say Brent Pearce is the best person for the job, and say he’s served in several roles for the district for nearly two decades.

Many of them say when you think of Porum, you think of Pearce.

They say he’s always willing to take on any role he can and is there for students.

Students from Porum in Muskogee County took the day off to show their support for Pearce.

They say Pearce has worked at the district for many years.

“We believe that he should have got it because he cares for our students, he cares for our teachers,” said Elizabeth Mooney, a senior at Porum High School. “He’s played a role as janitor, bus driver, he was a coach for a while.”

Many students say Pearce is synonymous with Porum schools, and they think he is the perfect person to become the next Superintendent.

“I’m not going to lie, I didn’t know who the Superintendent was until I got into about the eighth grade,” said Michael Wright, a senior at Porum High School. “But I always thought Mr. Pearce was the big guy. I always thought he was the top dog. So I was already like, he’s in the highest spot in the school.”

They know the next Superintendent will shape the future of Porum schools, so they want to make sure the district chooses the right person for the job.

“It’s important to me because I have little siblings that come to this school,” said Mooney. “I want to make sure that they’re going to be well taken care of whenever I graduate and that they’re going to have a good school system like I had growing up.”

The students say the point of the protest wasn’t to bash the new hire but to show they want it known who they think should be in that spot.

“We have feelings too,” said Wright. “We have voices. We’ll do anything to get him in there. He deserves it.”

The students say there will be a school board meeting on Monday that they plan to go to and also write letters of support for Pearce.

The school released a statement on the incident that says in full:

“Today about 60 or so students peacefully walked out of class while exercising their First Amendment rights. It appears that this was done to protest the board's action of not hiring a current administrator as the superintendent for next school year. The school did not interfere with the walkout, but simply monitored the situation to ensure that it stayed peaceful. Students who were not in class when they were supposed to be were counted absent.”