Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Region’s students join walkout
National demonstration spurred by Florida school shooting
Bentonville High School senior Eriife Adelusimo earned the first detention of her high school career after walking out of class Wednesday to take part in a nationwide demonstration by students against gun violence.
“I’m proud this is what my first detention is for,” said Adelusimo, 17.
Tens of thousands of young people across the country heeded a call by activists to leave class at 10 a.m. Wednesday for 17 minutes, one minute for each of the Parkland, Fla., victims, in what was one of the biggest student protests since the Vietnam era.
In Northwest Arkansas, activities prompted by the national walkout varied from school to school, as did
the participation rate.
Adelusimo and hundreds of other Bentonville High students lined both sides of Southeast J Street in front of their school for an hour. Dozens held up homemade signs. They chanted slogans such as “no more silence, end the violence” and “never again.” Many motorists honked as they drove by.
Starting at 10 a. m., they sat on the sidewalk in silence as Andrew Van Slooten, a senior, called out the names of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland last month, and provided a bit of information about each person.
Principal Jack Loyd said about 400 students — roughly 13 percent of the school’s enrollment — participated in the walkout. Staff members and police officers stood by and watched.
Meanwhile, in the school, it was business as usual, Loyd said.
A MARCH IN FAYETTEVILLE
Fayetteville High School students packed their school’s courtyard where they heard the names and grades or teaching positions of the Parkland victims.
The school rearranged its schedule to make homeroom fall during the walkout, so those participating didn’t miss instructional time.
A student resource officer estimated more than 1,000 students attended. Several students spoke, some with more overtly political messages than others.
“Let this generation go down in history as solving the problem when we saw the need,” said Becca Tomlinson, a student. “It doesn’t matter if you are Democrat, Republican or independent. These are children’s lives we are talking about. We need to come together as a nation and challenge the political powers to find a solution to decrease the mass shootings in the U.S.”
Huxley Richardson, 16, said Fayetteville feels like a safe community, but that’s what people at some other schools thought before shootings happened in those places.
“We, as students, have the right to live free of unnecessary violence, and change needs to happen. The only way things can change is by sticking together,” Richardson said.
Between 300 and 400 of the students marched to the Washington County Courthouse from the school immediately after the walkout. The school allowed students who wished to participate in the march to bring written permission notes from parents beforehand to have an excused absence.
Alan Wilbourn, a Fayetteville School District spokesman, said 222 permission slips were turned in. School staff members made sure all students were accounted for back on campus after the march ended, he said.
Kimberly Brasher, parent of a Fayetteville High School student, said she supports her daughter and others marching against gun violence.
“I do feel like this is super important,” she said. “It’s been really scary for the students that this is taking place, and it breaks my heart. It’s been really scary. They have been doing drills and it’s really terrifying. I want all the kids across the world to feel safe at school.”
At the courthouse, students chanted phrases such as “books not bullets” and “this is what democracy looks like.” Friends Anna Benafield and Kari Si stood near the street, holding a sign that read, “Thoughts & prayers don’t save lives but gun control will #neveragain.”
DISCIPLINARY ACTION
The coordinated protests were organized by Empower, the youth wing of the Women’s March, which drew thousands to Washington last year. Empower offered the students a list of demands for lawmakers, including a ban on assault weapons and mandatory background checks for all gun sales.
Some schools applauded students for taking a stand or at least tolerated the walkouts, while others threatened punishment.
Fayetteville School District didn’t impose punishments for walking out. The Bentonville School Board, however, decided Monday any student who joined the walkout would be disciplined per school policy, meaning they would be marked absent and assigned detention.
Loyd, Bentonville High School’s principal, said he’d spoken to several students about the board’s stance and they seemed to have accepted it.
“What’s really awesome here is just the maturity and the understanding of these students. Every student I’ve talked to has been very respectful and they get that there are rules at school and we have to abide by those rules,” Loyd said.
The threat of detention didn’t deter Bentonville sophomores Alex Barnett, 15, and Kyle Webb, 16. The friends stood together on the east side of J Street during the walkout.
“I’d rather be safe in my own school and serve detention than have the fear looming over me I might die in what I was raised to believe is a safe place,” Webb said.
Julia Sasine, another Bentonville student, urged fellow students to contact representatives in Congress to find out what they intend to do about gun violence.
“If you don’t like the answer, vote them out,” Sasine said.
Sasine’s comment was followed by students chanting, “Vote them out.”
The Rogers School District didn’t impose discipline on students for walking out. About half of the students at Rogers High School and Heritage High School, roughly 1,000 students at each school, attended on-campus memorials, according to Ashley Siwiec, district communications director. Principals said they were “quiet, dignified gatherings that honored the victims,” Siwiec said.
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
About 200 students at West High School — a little more than 10 percent of the school’s enrollment — walked out Wednesday, said Leslee Wright, the Bentonville School District’s communications director.
Anna McCasland is a junior and West High School’s student council president. She opted not to join the walkout because, given her leadership role, she thought it would be better to remain neutral on what is a politically divisive matter.
Instead, she urged fellow students to perform 17 random acts of kindness for others in honor of the Parkland victims. Her intent was to kick off the project Wednesday.
McCasland said she was very upset by the Parkland shooting and thought a common thread among mass shooting perpetrators is they seem to be isolated and have no friends. The acts of kindness project is an attempt to address that.
“Give a flower to someone. Sit with them at lunch. Just anything that’s kind,” said McCasland, 16. “I truly think it will make a difference. This is by no means political. It’s just an act of being kind.”
At Springdale High School and Har- Ber High School, students were granted time during their daily advisory period to attend a remembrance ceremony for the Parkland victims. Attendance was optional. Those who walked out would be violating policy and could be disciplined at the discretion of their principals, according to Rick Schaeffer, district communications director.
THE NATIONAL PICTURE
Historians said Wednesday’s demonstrations were shaping up to be one of the largest youth protests in decades.
“It seems like it’s going to be the biggest youth-oriented and youth-organized protest movements going back decades, to the early ’70s at least,” said David Farber, a history professor at the University of Kansas who has studied social change movements.
“Young people are that social media generation, and it’s easy to mobilize them in a way that it probably hadn’t been even 10 years ago.”
Stoneman Douglas High senior David Hogg, who has emerged as one of the leading student activists, livestreamed the walkout at the tragedy-stricken school on his YouTube channel. He said the students couldn’t be expected to remain in class when there was work to do to prevent gun violence.
“Every one of these individuals could have died that day. I could have died that day,” he said.
Congress has shown little inclination to tighten gun laws, and President Donald Trump backed away from his initial support for raising the minimum age for buying a rifle to 21.
The walkouts drew support from companies including media conglomerate Viacom, which paused programming on MTV, BET and all its other networks for 17 minutes during the walkouts.
Other protests planned in coming weeks include the March for Our Lives rally, which organizers say is expected to draw hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital March 24.