BOSTON — The nation's largest teachers unions are backing a nationwide push to get students out of class on May Day — and in Boston, organizers are already handing teenagers a phone number to help them do it.
The National Education Association has published a May Day 2026 toolkit urging educators to organize "walk-ins" at schools on May 1, complete with downloadable posters, social media templates, and speaker recruitment guides. The NEA has funneled $1.7 million to the Midwest Academy since 2015 — a training organization that's helping coordinate the "Four Weeks of Power" organizing series leading up to May Day. The Chicago Teachers Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers with more than 30,000 members, has formally endorsed the national call: "No work, no school, no shopping."
The NEA calls them "walk-ins," not walkouts. The distinction, apparently, is that participants gather outside the school for 30 to 45 minutes, listen to speakers, then walk in together. Whether the students actually make it to first period is, presumably, left to the honor system.
Boston is ready
In Boston, the planning is already well underway. The Boston May Day Coalition — a two-decade-old organizing body founded during the 2006 immigrant rights mobilizations — has lined up more than 30 endorsing organizations for May 1, including the Boston Teachers Union, DSA Boston, UNITE HERE Local 26, the Communist Party USA's Boston chapter, Workers World Party, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
The schedule reads like a full-day field trip nobody's parents signed a permission slip for: an 11 a.m. march from East Boston Memorial Park to Logan Airport, a 2 p.m. rally at Simmons University, a 4:30 p.m. main rally at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common, and feeder marches from Chelsea, Everett, and Lynn. Actions are also planned in Worcester, Lowell, New Bedford, and Holyoke.
Labor Notes reported that 250 people from 70 organizations attended a Boston "solidarity school" to plan the day. SEIU 509 and SEIU 32BJ have their own actions. The Greater Boston Labor Council, which organized January's anti-ICE rally at the South Bay Target, is part of the coalition.
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The demands? "Workers over billionaires." Immediate legal residence for all migrants. Free day care. Defund ICE. Free Palestine. The usual.
They're texting teenagers
And then there's the recruitment pitch aimed directly at high schoolers.
On Sunday, the Boston chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation posted an Instagram call urging "all Boston-area high school students" to plan walkouts at their schools on May 1. The post tells teenagers to text (617) 807-0758 to "get connected" with student organizers. The demands: "Put workers over billionaires" and "stop ICE terror and endless wars abroad."
PSL's post references Boston's role in the January "Shut It Down" protests, which swept across the country after ICE agent Johnathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman, in Minneapolis on January 7. That wave of action culminated in a national shutdown day on January 30, with Boston drawing hundreds of protesters to a rally at the South Bay Target.
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Now they want to run it back — this time with teenagers leading the charge.
What the law actually says
Under Massachusetts law, students have free speech rights, but walkouts aren't specifically protected. Schools can treat them the same as any unexcused absence. The one rule: they can't punish students more harshly just because the absence was political.
Boston Public Schools has not issued any guidance on May Day. May 1 is a regular school day.
The NEA, for its part, is careful to frame its toolkit around "walk-ins" — not walkouts. But the national slogan they're promoting says "no school." The organizations they're partnering with are explicitly calling for students to skip class. And in Boston, a socialist group is handing out a phone number to help teenagers organize it.
But sure. Walk-ins.
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