Lyons Township High Mom Proud Of Son's Detention

LA GRANGE, IL – A former area school board member says her son got a detention after he walked out of class with hundreds of other Lyons Township High School students to protest ICE.

Candice Mares, a former La Grange District 105 board member, responded to a Patch story that quoted some residents who wanted students who left class in February to be punished.

She said the older generation protested the Vietnam War, which is evidence that political conscientiousness skips a generation or two.

"Something has shifted. Perhaps the parents you quoted grew up with more stability, more comfort, and less urgency," said Mares, who is now a trustee for the Lyons Township government, which is separate from the school. "Disruption has returned. Our children feel it. They protest, question, and challenge, not because they are reckless, or indoctrinated by the agenda of liberal teachers, but because they are hyperaware of the fractures around them."

The in-between generations, Mares said, may complain on Facebook, but moved to adulthood in quieter times with no need to answer a call to action.

"Maybe this complacency laid the foundation for our children's vigilant engagement," Mares said. "I'm proud of them."

In messages to parents in February, the school's principal, Jennifer Tyrrell, said the school would follow its handbook, which calls for students to get one hour of detention for every class cut.

As a former school board member, Mares said she respected the high school's following its handbook.

At the same time, she said she would "simultaneously throw shade on leadership that doesn't encourage the next generation to prioritize the betterment of the world as paramount to all else."

She quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."