Students Incensed After Activist Day Ends in Reprimand

Sonoma Valley High School senior Austin Rose had big plans today.

Over the last few days, Rose, 18, sent out e-mail and facebook blasts to hundreds of Sonoma Valley High School classmates to encourage them to participate in "One Day Without Shoes," a national day of activism and awareness, sponsored by the ethical footwear company Toms, which asks activists to forgo footwear to raise awareness for the millions of people in the developing world who do not have access to shoes.

Though he'd envisioned hundreds of bare feet and a march of solidarity to the Plaza, instead he was sent home from school for refusing to don shoes. Participating students were given detentions.

"It's just not fair," said Rose. "Usually with dress code violations they warn you first, but this time they were just going through the halls saying 'you, here's a detention slip.'

In all six students were given detention; the rest just put their shoes on.

"Apparently wearing no shoes is a liability, you could lose a toe," said Jordan Albertson, 17, one of the students who was given a detention.

"You could lose a toe wearing sandals," said Lauren Leveroni, pointing to her open-face strap-on shoes. "Look these aren't shoes, they're just made of rope."

Beyond the reprimands, students were upset that they weren't able to fully participate in the day of poverty awareness.

"Even walking to class for the one period you could feel it, it was hard to walk with the ground digging into your feet," said one student, who was not issued a detention and didn't wish to be named.

For Principal Dino Battaglini the issue is simple liability.

"We can't have people walking around with no shoes on," said Battaglini. "It's unsafe, it's unsanitary...we have a dress code policy for a reason."

But Rose believes that since other high schools, such as Lake Wales High School in Florida, allow students to participate in the day as long as they bring parental permission slips, Sonoma Valley High should issue the same policy.

Other area schools, such as Napa High School, which confirmed they'd sent students home for attending school barefoot, have not adopted such a policy.

A lifelong activist - Rose raised over $2,000 to start a chapter of Schools for Schools, which builds schools in Uganda - he's just disappointed that his day of protest was cut short.

"This is what he wants to do with his life," said Laurie Langton, Rose's mother, who had skipped shoes today as well.

"I just wished they'd been a bit more supportive of the whole thing," said Langton.

But, having spoken to reporters from both Patch and the Sonoma Index-Tribune, she said that perhaps her son had been even more successful in his crusade for awareness.

"After these articles come out, he'll get all the awareness he needs," she said.