Out of Class and Into the Streets
In some places, demonstrators chanted and held signs. At other schools, students stood in silence. In Atlanta, some students took a knee.
Thousands of New York City students converged on central locations — Columbus Circle, Battery Park, Brooklyn Borough Hall, Lincoln Center.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, stretched out on the sidewalk as part of a “die-in” with students in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, the former home of the Occupy Wall Street protests.
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Hundreds sat in the middle of West 62nd Street for several minutes before rising to their feet and shouting, “No more violence.” A cry of “Trump Tower!” sent dozens of protesters marching toward the Trump International Hotel and Tower across Broadway. Onlookers gave them fist-bumps.
In Washington, thousands left their classrooms in the city and its suburbs and marched to the Capitol steps, their high-pitched voices battling against the stiff wind: “Hey-hey, ho-ho, the N.R.A. has got to go!” One sign said: “Fix This, Before I Text My Mom from Under A Desk.”
Members of Congress, overwhelmingly Democratic, emerged from the Capitol to meet them. Trailed by aides and cameras, some legislators high-fived the children in the front rows, others took selfies, and nearly all soon learned that the young protesters had no idea who they were.
Except, of course, for “BERNIE SANDERS!” which the protesters screamed at the Vermont senator, as well at some other white-haired, bespectacled legislators.
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Asked by reporters about the walkouts, Raj Shah, Mr. Trump’s deputy press secretary, said the president “shares the students’ concerns about school safety” and cited his support for mental health and background check improvements.
As the hours passed, the walkouts moved west across the country.
“It’s 10 o’clock,” said a man on the intercom at Perspectives Charter Schools on Chicago’s South Side. With that, hundreds of students streamed out of their classrooms and into the neighborhood, marching past modest brick homes, a Walgreens and multiple churches.
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Several current and former Perspectives students have been killed in recent years, the school president said.
“You see different types of violence going on,” said Armaria Broyles, a junior who helped lead the walkout and whose older brother was killed in a shooting. “We all want a good community and we all want to make a change.”
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At Santa Monica High School in Southern California, teachers guided hundreds of students to the football field. It felt like a cross between a political rally and pep rally, with dozens of students wearing orange T-shirts, the color of the gun control movement, and #neveragain scrawled onto their arms in black eyeliner.
“It is our duty to win,” Roger Gawne, a freshman and one of the protest organizers, yelled to the crowd.
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Staying Silent, for the Opposite Reason
Although the walkouts commanded attention on cable television and social media for much of Wednesday, it also was clear that many students did not participate, especially in rural and conservative areas where gun control is not popular.
At Bartlesville High School in Bartlesville, Okla., where hundreds of students walked out of class last month to protest cuts in state education funding, nothing at all happened at 10 a.m.
“I haven’t heard a word about it,” the principal, LaDonna Chancellor, said of the gun protest.
In Iowa, Russell Reiter, superintendent of the Oskaloosa Community School District, suggested that temperatures below 40 degrees may have encouraged students to stay indoors, but he also said that “students here are just not interested in what is going on in bigger cities.”
There was opposition even in liberal Santa Monica. Just after the organizers of the walkout there read the names of the Parkland victims, another student went on stage, grabbed the microphone and shouted “Support the Second Amendment!” before he was called off by administrators.
‘We Need More Than Just 17 Minutes’
Some of the day’s most poignant demonstrations happened at schools whose names are now synonymous with shootings.
Watched by a phalanx of reporters, camera operators and supporters, hundreds of students crowded onto the football field at Stoneman Douglas High shortly after 10 a.m.
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A month after the Feb. 14 shooting, notes of condolence, fading flowers and stuffed toys, damp from recent rain, still lay on the grass outside the school and affixed to metal fences.
The walkout was allowed by the school, but several students said they were warned that they would not be permitted back onto the campus for the day if they left school grounds. Despite the warning, a couple of hundred students marched to a nearby park for another demonstration.
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“We need more than just 17 minutes,” Nicolle Montgomerie, 17, a junior, said as she walked toward the park.
An email from the school soon went out telling students they could return.
In Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, hundreds of students at Newtown High School gathered in a parking lot near the football field. Two hours later, it was Columbine’s turn.
(CNN) Hours before the National School Walkout began in the United States, students in other countries got up from their desks to protest gun violence.
Tanzania
Students at the International School of Tanganyika in Tanzania hold a walkout Wednesday, March 14, 2018.
At the International School of Tanganyika in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, students and teachers used the walkout as an opportunity to talk about gun violence and US politics.
"We are lucky to live in a country that is relatively (civilian) gun-free, so it's not something our students have to think about," said Courtney Park, a teacher and librarian. "But they are aware of the school shootings in the USA, and some understand the greater contexts of the NRA and its influence in politics."
Some conversations included students' sense of "how lucky they are" that guns aren't a part of their everyday lives, Park said, noting that about a dozen of the school's teachers, plus the principal, are American.
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CLOSE Wade Hampton High School student council members talk about what they did to honor Parkland victims during the National School Walkout. Media wasn't allowed in the school during the national protest, but was escorted to the memorial once it was done. Lauren Petracca/Staff
Buy Photo J.L. Mann students participate in the National School Walkout Day on Wednesday, March 14, 2018. (Photo: JOSH MORGAN/Staff)Buy Photo
While hundreds of their students in Greenville County joined Wednesday morning's National School Walkout — an event designed to honor victims of school shootings, protest gun violence and urge political action — officials at Riverside High School prevented students from participating, some students said.
Greenville County Schools officials vehemently denied the claim.
"Some of the teachers were blocking the doors to the classrooms, and they purposely kept us in class later," said Riverside High senior MacKenzie Taylor, 17.
Brooke Wheeler, 17, a Riverside High junior, and other students also said some teachers blocked doors and other school officials walked in the halls telling students to return to class.
Taylor and Wheeler said they intended to walk out but didn't want to defy school officials.
"The kids were livid because they thought they were going to be able to walk out for 17 minutes," said Taylor's stepmother, Jeannie Taylor. "They wouldn’t let them participate at all.”
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Greenville County Schools Superintendent Burke Royster said administrators and teachers were told not to block classroom or school-exit doors.
"I don’t have any reason to believe that happened,” Royster said Wednesday.
Sixteen students walked out at Riverside High, said district spokeswoman Beth Brotherton.
Though some students expressed concerns they'd be punished for walking out, Royster said those students would receive "nothing more than a warning" for cutting class.
The school district said 531 students in all participated in non-school-sanctioned events and cut class: 1 at Blue Ridge, 20 at Carolina, 27 at Eastside, 7 at Greenville, 5 at Greer, 39 at Hillcrest, 206 at Mann, 179 at Mauldin, 16 at Riverside, 30 at Travelers Rest, and 1 at the Fine Arts Center.
Officials at Wade Hampton High stood in front of doors to the outside at the time of the nationally organized event, photos taken from inside the school seemed to show.
But those officials were there only to supervise events, not to block students from walking out, Brotherton said.
School officials line the doorways to the outside at Wade Hampton High School during the time of the scheduled walkout Wednesday morning. (Photo: Provided)
Promoted by the group Women’s March Youth Empower, the National School Walkout called on students, teachers, school administrators and parents to participate in a walkout from schools for 17 minutes at 10 a.m.
Increased police presence was visible at schools across the Upstate. The News called local law enforcement agencies Wednesday to find out how many additional officers were deployed to schools, but the calls were not immediately returned.
The added security created an intimidating atmosphere at Northwood Middle School, perhaps discouraging students from walking out, said parent Nils Fretwurst.
"Three sheriff's deputies were on-site instead of one resource officer," Fretwurst said. "Their placement combined with school staff on the inside of the doors seemed to be placed strategically to dissuade, stop or discourage any student walking out without a parent."
“There was some additional law enforcement present to ensure that our students and faculty were safe,” Royster said. “We believe it was a number sufficient to ensure that everybody was safe but not a number that would make people feel like they were stifled in any way from expressing their opinion.”
Protesting gun violence
Wheeler, the Riverside junior, said she had wanted to participate in the walkout "to protest gun violence."
Instead, she joined other classmates indoors as the school observed only 17 seconds of silence in honor of the 17 victims of the Feb. 14 mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
"It was not very respectful because students were still talking," Wheeler said.
The Riverside walkout, by contrast, lasted 17 minutes, Wheeler said.
More: Media protest Greenville school district's blocking of walkout coverage
Opinion: Media should be allowed to capture student demonstrations
The school district denied media access to events on school campuses. The Greenville News has declined to use photos and video offered by the district because the provided material has the potential to provide a subjective and filtered view of the events.
National School Walkout: Why some Upstate students will and others won't
The school district discouraged students from walking out in the interest of safety, officials said. District officials said they encouraged students to devise alternative ways to demonstrate inside schools.
“I think what upsets me the most is that Greenville County Schools said that media was not allowed on school grounds for safety reasons but the reality is that it’s because they were not allowing the children to participate,” Jeannie Taylor said. “It’s sure safe for them to go outside when they’re having a fire drill or a pep rally, but if they want to stand up for their own rights, suddenly it’s not safe?”
In a response to a written request Tuesday to open the schools to the media, the district said it was keeping the media out of schools so it could focus on student safety.
'Hug Our School'
On Wednesday afternoon Stone Academy held a “Hug Our School” event with parents, teachers and students forming a human chain around the school.
The activity was sparked by the National School Walkout but took place after school to be completely nonpolitical, said parent and organizer Kacey Eichelberger.
"We wanted to do something that was age-appropriate and intentionally loving,” Eichelberger said. “To me, the halls of our elementary school have felt like the most sacred places in our community. This was a very physical proclamation of our love for those teachers, that building and those sweet children inside it, and of our deep desire to keep them safe.”
Tens of thousands of other students across the nation participated in various events associated with the walkout, from protests to sanctioned activities.
Students at Wade Hampton who remained inside during a ceremony to commemorate Parkland's victims cried as names of those killed were read before a moment of silence.
Other activities at Greenville schools included:
• Students signing cards for students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.
• Students walking into hallways and sitting silently for 17 minutes as the names of the victims were called out, one every minute.
• Students locking arms in the hallways to form a circle around the inside of the school while the victims' names were read over the intercom system.
• Students wearing Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School colors.
• Students displaying 17 desks in the hallway with pictures and names of the victims.
• Students writing emails to lawmakers to express concern about school violence.
• Students creating T-shirts in memory of victims.
Paul Hyde covers education and everything else under the South Carolina sun. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter: @PaulHyde7.
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RICHMOND, Va. — Thousands of students in Central Virginia and around the country walked out of class Wednesday as part of The National School Walkout. Both a memorial to the Florida high school shooting victims and a protest against gun violence, the walkout happened at 10 a.m. with students walking out of schools and universities for 17 minutes — one minute to honor each Florida victim.
