Aurora Ponce graduates today from the Wallis Annenberg High School. She’s president of her class and class  valedictorian, has a near-perfect A average and will attend the  University of California in the fall. It should be one of the happiest days of her life. But, at best, it will be bittersweet — thanks to school officials.

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, Ponce has been   “barred from making her valedictory speech, because she took part “in a student sit-in protesting increased class sizes and teacher layoffs.”
During the silent sit-in on May 15, Ponce was escorted off campus and suspended for three days.

Ponce told the Times that “she was also deprived of a tutoring job she was counting on to help with coming college expenses…

“Officials aren’t talking.”

Wallis Annenberg High School is one of a collection of South Los Angeles charter schools, Accelerated School.

In effect, the school officials punished Ponce for doing what they should be doing, which is demanding that the state’s Clown College restore the fiscal gealth of  the state’s  schools.
Ponce’s protest was all the more admirable because she had nothing to gain, and, as it turned out, a lot to lose.

There was nothing admirable about the school officials’ assault on one of the school’s outstanding students. It was dumb, mean, cowardly, shameful and  ultimately pointless. Everything suggests that Ponce has a brilliant  future. The same cannot be said for the Accelerated School.