Students in region join National School Walkout
Nearly all of the almost 900 students in the auditorium of Woodland Hills Junior-Senior High School raised a hand.
A classmate had just asked who had personally been affected or knew someone who had experienced the effects of gun violence. Several students in the Woodland Hills School District have been killed this school year, including two in a threeday span in November and a first-grader in December.
“When we had it on the announcements at school, everyone wanted to be involved,” sophomore Rhiya Godhania-Carter said of the school’s participation Wednesday in a nationwide effort to protest gun violence.
“The Parkland shooting was just a catalyst to talk about what we go through on a daily basis at this school,” said Rhiya, one of the organizers of the school’s effort.
The Woodland Hills students joined hundreds across the Pittsburgh region and thousands across the country for the National School Walkout, a coordinated effort by students nationwide to honor the 17 students and educators killed during a Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Fla., and to call for stricter gun control laws.
From Maine to Hawaii, Wednesday’s demonstration was the largest
effort yet of the student activism that has emerged in response to last month’s shooting rampage at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The walkouts were loosely organized by Empower, the youth wing of the Women’s March, which brought thousands to Washington, D.C., last year. The group urged students to leave class at 10 a.m. local time for 17 minutes — one minute for each victim of the Florida shooting — and suggested demands for lawmakers, including an assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun sales.
Locally, students formed circles outside their schools and held moments of silence. Students at Oakland Catholic High School held a moment of silent prayer with 17 empty chairs representing each of the Parkland victims. Students at Allderdice High School wrote and read special tributesto each of the victims.
Nearly 800 students marched out of Penn Hills High School to honor the Parkland students, and students at the district’s Linton Middle School played “stand together bingo.” Several hundred students at Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School in Downtown linked hands to form a human chain around the school building before they marched to Market Square, mirroring a walkout protest in late February.
“Children are dying and being shot and having to practice what to do when a person comes in with a gun to their school,” shouted CAPA seventh-grader Christina Campbell, 12. “We’re sick and tired of it. We’re not doing this anymore. We’re going to fight back.”
At Oakland Catholic, students initially intended to walk out but were swayed by arguments from the administration to plan an alternate demonstration.
Instead, students gave presentations on gun violence in America and what students can do, both in terms of personal safety measures and in trying to effect change. Afterward, most of the student body filed into the gymnasium for a 17-minute prayer service.
Fourteen students and three faculty members, matching the 17 victims of the Parkland shooting, sat in chairs with candles. One by one, each read the name of a Parkland victim, blew out a candle, and walked to the back of the room, eventually leaving each chair empty for several minutes of silent prayer.
“I’m glad we didn’t just do a walkout,” said Jonelle Manner, an Oakland Catholic senior who grew up close to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and knows some friends of the victims. “It showed the students that there is more than one way to make a difference.”
At Propel Northside, a K-8 charter school, roughly 75 students walked out of the school to form a large oval in the parking lot. They were joined by staff, volunteers and clients of the nearby Pleasant Valley food pantry, who came carrying signs and stood with the students as the wind pulled at their hoods and scarves.
They remained outside for 17 minutes of silence to honor each of the Parkland victims before heading single-file back into the school.
“The generation above us hasn’t done anything, so it’s time for us to step up,” said Isabel Segel, a senior at Allderdice in Squirrel Hill, where 800 students rallied on the grass near the high school’s main entrance.
The group chanted and cheered, and the student leaders — who said they started planning their demonstration shortly after the Valentine’s Day shooting in Florida — read a brief tribute to each of the 17 victims that they had researched and written themselves.
Administrators with the Pittsburgh Public Schools and the Allderdice teachers watched and took photos as the students gathered.
“It felt powerful to be up there, because normally teens aren’t taken seriously,” said 16-year-old Becca Glickman, who along with several classmates helped organize the walkout.
“It really felt amazing that hundreds of my classmates participated and were taking it seriously,” added Josh Fidel, a junior.
In some areas, the protests drew threats of detentions, suspension or other official discipline for participating students. In Pittsburgh, however, some city and school district officials expressed support for the peaceful walkouts.
“Although the circumstances that brought many together today throughout the country remain troubling, the Penn Hills School District is proud of how our students handled our local expression of grief and support for the students and community of Parkland, Fla.,” Penn Hills superintendent Nancy Hines said in a statement.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto tweeted encouragement for the participants in the city and across the country. Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent Anthony Hamlet also tweeted his support for students’ “quest to make schools safer.”
Sala Udin, a civil rights advocate, current Pittsburgh school board member and former city councilman, said the response to the shooting in Parkland is a powerful lesson for students.
“The learning and growth experienced by students all over America is an experience that cannot be duplicated in the classroom, but can only be felt in the street, or in the process of ‘walking out,’” Mr. Udin said in a statement released by the district. “The issues raised by the murders of students and teachers in Florida offer an opportunity for life-changing lessons that should not be missed while adults search for ways to ‘discipline’ involved students. Let’s make it the learning opportunity that it can be. Our first and highest priority is to teach. Let’s keep our priorities straight.”