A student-led effort to honor the victims of the Feb. 14 school shootings in Florida and demand gun control legislation is being embraced by students at four East Cobb high schools for what’s being called the National School Walkout on March 14.
Students at Lassiter, Pope, Walton and Wheeler high schools have sent a letter to Cobb County School Superintendent Chris Ragsdale and his executive cabinet stating their intention to walk out of their classes for 17 minutes on that day.
That’s in honor of the 17 students and staff killed by a gunman at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. A former student at the school has been arrested for the shootings.
The protests will begin at 10 a.m. and continue to 10:17 a.m. on March 14, which is a Wednesday. The walkout grew out of the Women’s March Network, and invites students nationwide to organize their own protests.
Lily Lefter, a junior at Walton, said in an e-mail to East Cobb News that she and seven other Walton students organized a protest for their school. A member of that group later participated in a groupchat with the Pope, Lassiter and Wheeler students to prepare a joint message.
In their letter to Ragsdale, which was signed by organizers at each of the four schools, they wrote that:
“The students at our high school will not be a statistic. Because this directly affects our education, our friends, our teachers, our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers, and our entire community we will not sit idly by waiting for lawmakers to decide policy change.
“As a collective group, we, the students of Lassiter, Pope, Walton, and Wheeler, have formed an alliance across the county to inform you of our decision to stand united and walk out of class for 17 minutes. We have passionately embraced the call for smart and nonpartisan gun control laws to be enacted which has consequently begun the organization of the walkout across Cobb County.”
Cobb schools have not announced a policy decision for the protest. Over the weekend Marietta City Schools said it would not discipline students who took part in protests, along with others in metro Atlanta.
Lefter said the students have not heard back from officials at Cobb schools, which resumed this week after last week’s winter break. She said Walton students e-mailed Principal Judy McNeill last week and they would like to set up a meeting if they don’t hear back by Wednesday.
Lefter said more than 500 Walton students have signed up on the protest page in the five days since it was created.
She also said the Lassiter administration “has endorsed the walkout,” and she understands that Pope administration is in the process of setting up a meeting with students.
Lefter said she got involved because she’s always been vocal about politics, “and, particularly for something as significant and relevant as gun control:”
“I feel it is my duty as a citizen to not only send my condolences and respects to the victims and families of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but also to take action to push for policy change. In addition to walking out, my fellow hosts and I are planning to have people make calls to their legislators in order to take it to the next level to show that we are voters, and if we’re not 18 now, we will be come this next election, and we will not support nor let stand the complacency to the lack of comprehensive gun regulation in America.”
The day after the Florida shootings, Ragsdale announced at a Cobb Board of Education meeting that the district would be conducting unannounced “code red” drills at selected high schools to assess readiness for active shooter situations.
Every school in the Cobb district is required to have a code red drill each semester.
The National School Walkout group also was planning a similar protest for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado.
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