WUSD students leading the way in search of school safety

“It just shows that the youth are exhausted of being the generation where we’re locked in closets and waiting for police to come in case of a shooter”, Alex Wind, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, told The Associated Press.

Numerous students mentioned they have younger siblings who will soon attend the high school and said they want to feel like they will be safe.

Johnson High School, in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood on the East Side, had about 400 students participate in the walkout, according to Johnson Principal Micheal Thompson.

She said she would make two phone calls: one to her parents and one to her brother, who is also a student, “to see if he is OK and safe”.

“How could we teach you about Martin Luther King Jr. your whole lives and then when knowing you want to engage, we tell you: ‘No, you can’t, ‘” Moore said to the students.

And to the public servants who so far have failed to do anything substantial about protecting the children of this country from the next attack, we hope you may finally recognize – because of the voices of children – that now is the time for action and for change. “I am here to support the movement”, the student said.

These students chose to walk, and they learned first-hand of the power they can hold by being united.

Though he said he’s been through active shooter drills at school for as long as he can remember, a recent lockdown at RAHS because of a potentially violent situation near the school also hardened his resolve.

But the students insist their aim isn’t partisan: “We’re just trying to make sure that morally just people are running this country”, Stoneman Douglas senior Ryan Deitsch told the AP. “We call for mental health evaluations, we call for background checks, and we call for gun control reform”, a student says in the video. This is the eleventh week of 2018, and we are 14 school shootings in. When honoring the victims of the Parkland school shooting, they continued to shout about their “2A” ideals.

“I don’t want their guns”, she said of gun owners.

Dixon said, “This is not a red thing or a blue thing or left or right thing”.

Speaking to her fellow students, Victoria Pham, a student body president who helped plan last week’s walkout, said not to get discouraged. They demonstrated leadership, intelligence and humanity in recognizing the loss of their peers, and their own right to be safe in their classrooms.

Frey said earlier that morning, her 10-year-old sister saw her making the sign she carried during the walkout and that her younger sibling had a request: “Please march for me”. I guess it has made me more confident that a few people can have a nationwide impact if they are vocal and committed enough. “I came out here to give recognition to the students that were killed”, the student said.

It is essential to realize that in our school there were no victims from the walkout. “This is simply a supportive, enriching walkout that is meant to extend our support and say that enough is enough and that we, as a school, would like to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again”.

“I could have never imagined when I was in high school that this would be a reality that kids need to think about in my lifetime”, Murphy said.