FROM WALKOUT TO SIT IN
Hundreds of Ariz. students protest gun violence
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Hundreds of Arizona students started their day Wednesday by walking out of class to hold demonstrations on campus as part of National Walkout Day. They gathered to honor the 17 victims killed last month in a shooting in a Florida high school and call for an end to gun violence in America.
About 45 students in white T-shirts ended the day with a sit-in at Gov. Doug Ducey’s office, demanding to speak to him about gun violence and chanting “Shame on Ducey.”
Ducey did not make an appearance and a state lawmaker convinced the students to leave peacefully after about two hours.
At Mountain Ridge High School in Glendale, hundreds of students walked onto the football field at about 10 a.m. Some wore orange shirts for gun-control awareness.
Students laid out giant letters on the 50yard line that spelled “ENOUGH.”
They read the names of the victims of the Florida shooting and stood in silence for about seven minutes. Some bowed their heads, oth-
ers clenched their fists in the air as a TV helicopter whirred above them.
Rylee Tinnel, a Mountain Ridge senior who organized her school’s demonstration, said the Florida massacre “sparked something in me that someone needs to say something.”
Students at more than 2,800 schools and colleges across the country had signed up to participate in walkouts, according to Women’s March Youth EMPOWER, which helped students coordinate the events.
Some schools threatened discipline if students left school property for Wednesday’s National School Walkout, as was seen in some of the immediate student action following the mass shooting on Valentine’s Day.
But it appeared that, in most cases, administrators coordinated with organizers to make accommodations for oncampus activities to help avoid students actually leaving school grounds.
Monica Allred, spokeswoman for the Deer Valley Unified School District, said school administrators “neither encouraged or discouraged” students to participate in the demonstration.
The district worked with student organizers to ensure the demonstration minimized disruption to the school day and maintained kids’ safety, Allred said.
Hundreds of other students at Mountain Ridge did not participate in the demonstration.
Students walked out of classes in metro Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson. According to photos or videos posted to social media, walkouts occurred at these high schools:
❚ Mountain Ridge High School in Glendale.
❚ Apollo High School in Glendale. ❚ Deer Valley High School in Glendale.
❚ Cactus High School in Glendale. ❚ Raymond S Kellis High School in Glendale.
❚ Liberty High School in Peoria. ❚ Peoria High School in Peor.ia ❚ Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria.
❚ Valley Vista High School in Surprise.
❚ Dysart High School in El Mirage. ❚ Sunnyslope High School in Phoenix.
❚ Brophy College Preparatory in
Phoenix.
❚ Cactus Shadows High School in Cave Creek.
❚ Rincon High School in Tucson. ❚ University High School in Tucson. ❚ Amphitheater High School in Tucson.
❚ Flowing Wells High School in Tucson.
❚ Flowing Wells Junior High School in Tucson.
❚ Palo Verde High Magnet School in Tucson.
❚ Desert View High School in Tucson.
❚ Flagstaff High School in Flagstaff. ❚ BASIS Peoria.
A handful of Arizona elementary and middle schools also participated:
❚ Sonoran Foothills School, an elementary school in north Phoenix. ❚ Cholla Middle School in Phoenix. ❚ Gallego Intermediate Fine Arts Magnet School, a middle school in Tucson.
Some schools had already experienced walkouts in the weeks following the Parkland shooting, most of them in East Valley communities, including Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and the San Tan Valley area.
Other schools tried to address the issue in advance.
Madison Traditional Academy, a K-8 school in north-central Phoenix, organized a “day of caring” in which middleschool-age students who expressed interest in participating in the National School Walkout held brief moments of silence in their classrooms.
Mike Duff, principal of Madison Traditional, told parents in a letter that the school’s intent was to allow older students to express themselves while protecting younger students who likely aren’t aware of “such horrible tragedies.”
Some of the state’s largest districts are on spring break this week, including Mesa Public Schools, Chandler Unified School District, Tempe Union High School District and Gilbert Public Schools, explaining the apparent lack of participation from the East Valley.
Some students spent the afternoon at the Capitol, meeting with state lawmakers and holding a news conference demanding the GOP-led Legislature pass bills requiring background checks for all gun purchases and banning bump stocks, devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to mimic machine guns.
They also asked lawmakers for more school counselors.
Dozens of students wearing white Tshirts packed the gallery in the Arizona House of Representatives.
Rep. Isela Blanc, D-Tempe, asked the students to stand as Democratic legislators introduced them individually by name. She said the number of massacres in recent decades makes the students “the generation of mass shootings in America.”
Rep. Kirsten Engel, D-Tucson, asked the House to observe a 17-minute time of silence — one minute for each victim killed in the Parkland shooting.
But House Speaker J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, said the chamber would instead recognize a shorter moment of silence. As the moment ended, students in the gallery yelled, “Never again,” and walked out.
About 45 students later filed into Ducey’s lobby to try to talk to him about the issue. Ducey’s staff said he wasn’t at the Capitol.
Six Department of Public Safety officers observed as the governor’s education-policy adviser Dawn Wallace listened to the sometimes loud and frustrated crowd share their fears about being killed at school.
Eventually, after being criticized by the students for patronizing the students, Wallace left, shaken and tearful, though she promised to deliver the message to the governor that the group was serious about meeting.