17 MINUTES
DELCO STUDENTS WALK OUT OF SCHOOL IN GUN PROTEST
A Haverford High School student holds up a sign as she walks back to school after taking part in the National School Walkout yesterday.
Their maroon T-shirts said it all: “Chichester Eagles support Douglas Eagles.”
It was just one of the ways students at Chichester High School decided to show their support on National School Walkout Day, when thousands of students across the region marked exactly one month since a mass shooting left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
At Chester High, students gathered outside the high school and listened to student speeches about their safety concerns and the need for better gun laws.
At Garnet Valley, students honored the 232 people killed in school shootings since the Columbine tragedy in 1999 by decorating bookbags with flowers. They processed to the football field and formed a human heart around the GV at the center of the field.
At Academy Park, nearly three-quarters of the student population marched in silence to the athletic fields carrying signs urging beefed-up gun laws.
At Haverford High, students walked around the track for 17 minutes, one minute for each victim of Parkland.
On the Main Line, students at Lower Merion High School stood in silence to mark the tragedy of a month ago.
At Malvern Prep, a student procession was led by kids carrying a large wooden cross.
In Philadelphia, hundreds of students converged on the school administration building on North Broad Street before marching on City Hall.
Other high schools in Delaware County where students participated in voluntary organized events included Penncrest, Springfield, Upper Darby and Sun Valley.
“I had the pleasure of meeting with students over the past couple weeks. These students have shown maturity, compassion, and conscientiousness as they navigated this extremely difficult topic of school safety and senseless shootings,” Sun Valley High School Principal Patrick Sasse wrote in a letter to Sun Valley families in advance of Wednesday’s event. “Moreover, their plan for the 14th is a testimony to the support that they receive from their families.”
While the students at Sun Valley wanted to memorialize and commemorate all lives lost due to school shootings, Sasse indicated he also wanted to issue a call for student voices to recognize that change is needed.
Students at Sun Valley who volunteered to participate were encouraged to wear orange Wednesday to symbolize solidarity against senseless gun violence.
In Upper Darby, police commended students at the high school, calling their walkout “respectful and somber.”
Back at Chi, with the exception of an extended homeroom, it was business as usual for the 900-plus students at the high school for the early part of the morning.
Then shortly before 10 a.m., students began to assemble in the gymnasium, where they were greeted by Principal Michael P. Stankavage. He spoke about the event. He also heaped praise on his students for doing what he said was “a great job.”
At 10:17 a.m., Stankavage led a moment of silence in remembrance of the 17 lives lost in Florida.
“You could hear a pin drop for the next several minutes,” Stankavage wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon.
After the moment of silence, Stankavage opened the microphone to the students.
Individually, “five or six students spoke,” Stankavage said. A group of students then also expressed their thoughts.
The assembly closed with an E-A-G-L-E-S chant – since students at Chichester and Marjory Stoneman Douglas share the same school mascot.
“It was Eagles supporting Eagles,” Stankavage said.
The event concluded about 10:30 a.m., in time for the first lunch period.
Stankavage estimated that about 95 percent of the students in attendance Wednesday participated in the event.
As was the case with most events across the country, the Chichester event was closed to the press and public.
Chichester School District Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Sherman said she and other school officials met last week with student government representatives from each homeroom. Students had been asked how they wanted to the mark the one-month anniversary of the Parkland school assault, according to Sherman.
Student safety was a top priority.
On Tuesday Sherman shared a memo distributed throughout the school community describing plans for the high school and middle school students. At the high school on Monday and Tuesday, tables were set up with large pieces of paper on which students were asked to finish the sentence, “What we want …, “in terms of school safety.
“This banner is one way Chichester High School can show support for Stoneham Douglas High School,” the memo states. “We have received very good feedback from homerooms and this is an opportunity for our student body to expand on that input.”
Among the many things that Chichester High School students wrote that they want:
• Don’t punish people for their mental health, find the right help.
• Teachers should not have guns.
• Show forms of ID to get into the school.
• Locked doors, tasers. metal detectors, bag checks, drills, better security overall. • More school officers. • No trench coats. In large print, one high school student wrote, “Stop the bullying.”
In addition to the assembly on Wednesday, students during the extended homeroom period wrote letters, either to students in Florida expressing their shared fears, or to local lawmakers including state Reps. Brian Kirkland, D-159 of Chester, and Stephen Barrar, R-160 of Upper Chichester, and state Sen. Thomas H. Killion, R-9 of Middletown, about overall school safety.
At the Chichester Middle School, students are continuing to promote a “Week of Kindness” to address social and emotional well-being issues.
The initiative kicked off Tuesday with “Introduction to Kindness Week,” followed by “Self-care on Wednesday, “Compassion” on Thursday and “Integrity” on Friday.
“To honor the students in Florida, this week we are gong to celebrate and spread kindness. Kindness is being friendly, generous, and considerate to both yourself and others. Kindness is contagious. One act can spark a chain of kindness that carries from one person to another,” the memo reads. “Our goal this week is to spread kindness throughout all of Chichester Middle School.”
The middle school students have been challenged to perform three acts of kindness every day, something as simple as sharing a smile in the hallway, offering a compliment or holding a door open.
By the end of the week, that could add up to more than 12,000 expressions of kindness.