In a nationwide mid-term campaign, the Sunrise Movement – formerly known for its eco-fascist climate-based policy frameworks aimed at reducing rural republican districts – has teamed-up with the nation’s largest teachers’ union and a prominent Democratic Congressman to host anti-ICE training courses on student activism and walkouts. Now, students are suffering the consequences of political usery amid this collective’s weekly – until May Day – “Roadmap to Political Revolution” training and candidate phone bank series.
One prominent example occurred on Friday Feb. 13, at Woodbridge High School in Prince William County, Virginia, where approximately 303 students—about 11% of the student body—left campus without permission. Participants marched along Old Bridge Road, with some heading to a nearby shopping center or home, while others returned and reportedly caused disturbances on campus.
School officials, led by Principal Heather Abney, issued three-day out-of-school suspensions for violating the district’s code of conduct on truancy and off-campus departure, not the protest content itself. Prince William County Police provided traffic control for safety. A follow-up countywide action on the following Friday, Feb. 20, even saw students coordinate with administrators—protesting on campus to avoid further penalties.
The Sunrise Movement – through its new “Project Rise Up” – appears to have played a key role in providing resources, training, and encouragement for these actions, for which the organization takes responsibility.
“Project Rise Up is taking responsibility for organizing students and education workers in the US into a force to be reckoned with on the path to May Day 2028. No politician can keep their job, no school administrator can keep classes running, and no corporation can make a profit if they side with authoritarianism over us,” according to the website.
In February 2026, X account @TalkWithSally infiltrated the Sunrise Movement’s Roadmap to Political Revolution training, led by Aru Shiney-Ajay, NEA president Becky Pringle, and Congressman Ro Khanna D-CA. During the call, the speaker panel discussed the various ways in which to disrupt Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations—detailing everything from sleep deprivation to student walkouts.
Ro Khanna is on Sunrise Zoom call coordinating protests nation wide to demand ICE reform, prosecution of rogue agents, and defunding.
The Sunrise Movement gets their funding from mutual aid and other means of funding. The same people that campaigned to get Mamdani elected are… pic.twitter.com/oChoZ75Q1e
— Sally (@TalkWithSally) January 29, 2026
The speakers also discussed a 25-page training playbook for K-12 and college students and workers to engage in monthly “disruptions” and “mass non-cooperation” to build toward a “political revolution” and a major May Day 2026 mobilization.
Becky Pringle is President of the National Education association. In this video she talks about how she has taught middle school for over 31 years.
"we know that our young
people have always
been and always will be at the
center of every movement.
And I'm so proud of them,… pic.twitter.com/GLmGdE8qyv— Sally (@TalkWithSally) January 30, 2026
The playbook – a step-by-step strategy for recruitment, training, chants, flyers, leveraging media optics, and converting participants into long-term organizers of sustained disruptions – calls for actions on Fridays, such as the Woodbridge walkout on Friday Feb. 13, and and on-campus protest the following Friday Feb. 20.
During their ongoing Zoom calls detailing walkout logistics, and across social media posts, Sunrise and the NEA encourage high schoolers to “just go for it,” with offers of resources and support through a “text ORGANIZE to 88504” campaign.
While this “collective” has framed campaigns as youth resistance to “authoritarianism and billionaire greed,” strategic documents discovered by undercover reporter Cam Higby, combined with Action Network funding mechanisms, tie these anti-ICE efforts to CCP-aligned billionaire Neville Roy Singham. The Collective’s messages and collaborations with UNIDOS MN also tie this collective to highly organized obstruction events in Minnesota.
From climate change to land acknowledgements, the web of collectivist affinity groups, including Sunrise, have been widely criticized for radicalism. However, with the latest partnership between Sunrise and the NEA – the nation’s largest teachers union – that radicalization now has a more direct path to students through teachers and staff.
