Students nationwide stage walkouts
PARKLAND, Fla. – Students across the country – from middle school to college – walked out of class Wednesday, calling on state and federal legislators to enact stricter gun laws one month after the mass shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Seventeen students and staff members were killed at the school in Parkland on Feb. 14. On Wednesday, students at hundreds of schools across the nation left class at 10 a.m. local time for 17 minutes – one minute for each victim. Ingrid Lopez rallies her fellow students as they chant, “No More Guns,” during the National School Walkout for Gun Control on Wednesday at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in Los Angeles.
At Marjory Stoneman Douglas, two walkouts took place. Citing safety concerns, student government officials and administrators urged students not to leave campus, but to walk to the football field with teachers. Some students balked at the idea of a chaperoned walkout, saying they wanted to get off campus and spread their message to the broader public.
As students made their way to the football field, past a sculpture of the school Eagle mascot, they walked hand in hand or with their arms around each other. Only a few carried placards. There were no chants. Helicopters buzzed overhead.
David Hogg, 17, one of several students at the school who has gained national prominence for advocating gun control, livestreamed the walkout on his Youtube channel.
“We have to stand up now and take action,” Hogg said. He interviewed several of his classmates.
“This is about the need for change,” another student told Hogg. “Yes, the prayers from politicians are nice, but we need real change.”
Organized by the youth branch of the Women’s March, called Empower, the National School Walkout is urging Congress to take meaningful action on gun violence and pass federal legislation that would ban assault weapons and require universal background checks for gun sales.
Students from New York to Seattle marched on school athletic tracks or staged sit-ins along busy streets.
In Massachusetts and Ohio, students headed to their statehouses to lobby for new gun regulations. In Washington, D.C., hundreds of students gathered outside the White House, holding signs and marching quietly.
“No more silence, end gun violence,” read one sign. Another said, “History has its eyes on you.”
In Maryland, students at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute poured out the back doors of the school and onto the football field. Many of them lay down on the football field. Hundreds of Baltimore students left school to march to City Hall.
In Illinois, high school students from Barrington to Plainfield to Naperville to Chicago worked with peers and school administrators and prepared signs and speeches in preparation for the mobile protest.
With walkouts planned across the country – at elementary schools, high schools and universities – organizers published a “tool kit” online that offered students tips on how to organize, get support from parents and guardians and share information on social media.
Earlier this week, Robert W. Runcie, superintendent of Broward County schools in Florida, notified parents he had instructed staff not to interfere with peaceful student-led protests.
“Such occasions are teachable moments, during which students can demonstrate their First Amendment right to be heard,” Runcie wrote in a letter to parents. “In the event students walk out or gather, school principals and assigned staff will remain with students in a designated walkout area, so that supervision is in place.”