Just before more than a hundred students at a San Francisco public high school staged a noisy anti-Israel walkout on Oct. 18, several met inside the school with a member of a stridently anti-Israel group who was “not permitted to be on campus” during the protest, an SFUSD investigation has found.
The activist from AROC, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, was escorted off school grounds, according to the investigation, but later joined the procession of students from the Galileo Academy of Science and Technology.
Hundreds of students walked out of Bay Area schools that day, and reports overwhelmingly claimed the protests were entirely student led.
But the results of the investigation by the SFUSD’s Office of Equity raises questions about the extent to which AROC helped facilitate the dramatic student protests that rocked the region that day, garnering widespread media coverage.
“The idea that this type of activism is coming from the students themselves, organically, is false,” said a Jewish SFUSD parent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she worried about being singled out by opponents. “Students in our district are being encouraged toward a particular political dogma that is based on a lot of propaganda,” she added. “Students are being used as a Trojan horse.”
Students waved Palestinian flags during the demonstrations, chanting such slogans as, “From Palestine to Mexico, these border walls have got to go!” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and “When Palestine is under attack, what do we do? (Stand up! Fight back!).” The protest did not include a call for Hamas to free the hostages held captive in Gaza, nor did it condemn violence perpetrated by Hamas and other militants on Oct. 7.
These adults were later seen in the quad with the students doing the walkout, and one of the adults was filming the students.
The investigation found that Galileo was not the only school where outsiders may have played a role in walkouts. On Oct. 18, the report said, “unidentified adults” were on campus at Balboa High School. Investigators did not know whether they were members of AROC.
“These adults were later seen in the quad with the students doing the walkout, and one of the adults was filming the students,” the report said. An administrator saw one of the adults turn to a student in the hall and ask, “Do you want to join my protest?” the report said.
On Dec. 6, a San Francisco activist group called SF Guardians sent a letter to the school district urging an investigation into AROC, including whether the group fomented discrimination against Jewish or Israeli students, teachers and staff.
“Political organizations should not be in our schools, mobilizing our children,” Siva Raj, co-founder of SF Guardians, said at the time.
AROC has been a longtime partner of the San Francisco school district and currently maintains an agreement with the SFUSD, through June 2026, to provide “workshops in classrooms related to leadership development and cultural empowerment,” among other services.
After the walkout, a number of Jewish parents, some of them affiliated with the Guardians, expressed serious concern.
AROC is an unsparingly anti-Zionist organization known in part for organizing protests in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in the Bay Area, including “Block the Boat” demonstrations that attempt to sabotage the offloading of goods from Israeli-owned ships at the Port of Oakland. Days after the Oct. 7 attack, AROC released a statement blaming Israel “for all unfolding violence” in the region.The group also helped organize the recent “People’s Conference for Palestine,” a rally in Detroit that drew criticism for advocating for terrorism.
AROC did not respond to a request for comment.
A number of indications of AROC’s involvement in the student protest were already publicly known.
The group published four Instagram posts advertising the walkout, including two on the day it took place. AROC executive director Lara Kiswani spoke at a press conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall that same day demanding “an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
The day after the walkout, AROC published video testimonials from students who participated, claiming that over 1,700 students marched across the Bay Area. “Listen to these Bay Area youth tell you why they stand in solidarity with Palestine and Gaza!” the post said.
Other clues to AROC’s involvement were not trumpeted publicly. One of them was a “toolkit,” in the form of a Google Doc, that laid out a plan for the day under AROC letterhead. “Start at 10:30 a.m.,” it said. “Be organized beforehand, get student activists and your friends ready and coordinated.” The document listed a number of student demands, legal resources and chants suggested for students to shout during the event, and linked to “walkout talking points for media.” Outside Balboa High, students carried a bright yellow banner, marked with AROC’s logo, that said “End Israeli apartheid.”
Walkouts for Gaza across the Bay Area continued sporadically for months following the Oct. 18 protest. Two Oakland schools participated in walkouts on Feb. 28. Berkeley middle school students at King walked out on May 10, the same day antisemitic graffiti was discovered at the school.