Students take stand against gun violence
Bay Area youth to join walkouts worldwide on Wednesday
Thousands of students are planning to pour out of school classrooms across the Bay Area at 10 a.m. Wednesday, joining teens around the world asking for adults to do something to fight gun violence.
Many plan to spend 17 minutes in silence, one minute for each victim of the Valentine’s Day mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. But exactly how the walkout will unfold — and whether students will be punished or supported — is expected to vary from campus to campus.
Some students say they will read the victims’ names, recite poems or sign condolence cards, while others plan to carry protest signs and call for action. Dozens of students in San Francisco and neighboring cities say they will travel to Sacramento and try to meet with legislators to push for stronger mental
health resources and stricter gun laws.
The National School Walkout, to be held exactly a month after the Parkland shooting, started as a social media suggestion. It has spiraled into a planned classroom exodus in virtually every state, involving high schools as well as many middle schools.
Josiah Kelly, a 17-year-old senior at the Academy high school in San Francisco, said he was inspired to help organize a walkout after he and his classmates spent 90 minutes on lockdown a few weeks ago after a student allegedly brought a gun onto campus.
The fear was intense: “I felt it,” he said. “I hate that youth across the country have to go through that every single day.”
At his school, students plan to walk out at 10 a.m. along with their counterparts at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, which shares the campus near Twin Peaks.
After 17 minutes of silence on the football field, Josiah said, students will conduct a voter preregistration effort for those ages 16 and 17. Then comes a march to City Hall, where the teens will meet up with students from several other high schools.
Josiah said he’s tired of elected officials “not doing anything” to address gun violence in all its forms — homicides, suicides, police shootings, domestic violence and mass shootings in schools.
“They just don’t seem to care,” he said. “They don’t seem to think this is important.”
Students at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts said they were driven to speak out and organize after seeing the bravery of Parkland students who, mere hours after the attack, challenged authorities.
“Their ability to rise from that really struck me,” said sophomore Natasha Janowski, 15.
“It was a call to action to all of us,” said senior Bay Tamboury, 18.
In San Francisco, school officials said educators and police will accompany students who march off campus. Still, the district doesn’t want to encourage such marches for safety reasons, and principals have been advised to consider Wednesday’s tardies and absences as unexcused.
At Pittsburg High in the East Bay, the district is backing 200 students who organized activities from 9:42 a.m. to 10:17 a.m., including registering voters, signing petitions and taping video messages for legislators. A three-minute student “die-in” will represent the victims of gun violence.
“The event is to honor and remember victims of gun violence from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, as well as victims of gun violence from across the country, and to allow students the opportunity to express their feelings and opinions about gun violence and gun laws in this country,” district officials said in a statement.
Elsewhere, school officials said they have been working to balance competing interests. Many want to support students itching to protest while discouraging an exodus off campus.
“We recognize the fact that Generation Z is in our classes today,” said Victoria Brunn, a spokeswoman for Manteca Unified in San Joaquin County. “They want to have a political voice, and they want to feel empowered. We don’t want to exclude their voice from the conversation.”
In Manteca, administrators have adjusted their class schedule on Wednesday so the midmorning break coincides with the demonstration. Those who don’t return to class will receive an unexcused absence, Brunn said.
“A walkout is definitely not encouraged or supported,” she said.
Not all school officials across the country have sought to accommodate student plans, including the superintendent in Needville, Texas, who promised a threeday suspension for any kid who demonstrates during school hours.
Sensing the tension, the American Civil Liberties Union has been distributing information, including videos and online resources, to inform students of their rights. While public schools can compel students to attend school, they can’t impose a harsher punishment for a walkout, said Esha Bhandari, an ACLU staff attorney.
“We’ve been getting students information on their rights so they feel empowered to decide what’s best for them,” she said.
Meanwhile, dozens of universities across the country have promised applicants that suspensions or other consequences for walkouts will not hurt their chances for admission.
Annika Bereny, a student at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School in Palo Alto, said she isn’t worried about getting in trouble. She’s more worried about a shooter at school.
The eighth-grader said she has been “into politics” since 2016 and has always thought the country needed stronger gun control. Like most kids of her generation, she is experienced in “code red” drills — her school had one the week before the Parkland shooting.
“We had built our barriers, and we had blockaded our doors,” she said.
Annika and her classmates, she said, all had the same thought: “This will never happen to us.” And then 17 teenagers died in Florida.
“We were all scared, and we shouldn’t be scared in school, because we’re there to learn,” she said. “I think that’s why I’m so involved in the issue.”
She helped organized a 10 a.m. walkout Wednesday at her middle school, during which students will protest — loudly, she said. Later, during the lunch break, there will be an open mike so students can speak and supplies so they can write to congressional representatives. The day will end with a moment of silence.
“I’m glad we’re finally getting to play a role in our future even though we can’t vote yet,” Annika said. “I think young people should be able to shape the world they’ll grow up in and live in.”