Walkout Day Coverage
UPDATED, 5:30 P.M.
Walton High School Principal Judy McNeill sent out this message to parents this afternoon:
We have received many reports of a threat made against the school for tomorrow, March 14, 2018. The administration along with school police have thoroughly investigated all reported information and have found nothing credible to substantiate a threat to our school. We are very thankful students and parents have come forward with various information as we must all work together to keep us all safe. If you ever receive any concerning information in the overnight hours, please call our local police at Precinct 4.
ORIGINAL POST, 3:41 P.M.
The day before students are staging gun-control “walkout” protests, Cobb schools issued a reminder that all campuses will be closed to “visitors” on Wednesday.
This doesn’t include parents dropping off or picking up their children. Cobb schools are on an early release schedule Wednesday, with high schools letting out at 11:30 a.m., followed by elementary schools at 12:30 p.m. and middle schools at 1:30 p.m. The rest of the afternoon is a professional learning day for teachers.
The Cobb County School District is not endorsing the walkouts and is threatening to subject those students who do to its code of conduct.
Walkouts are planned nationwide for 17 minutes at 10 a.m. as part of what’s being called National School Walkout, to honor the 17 victims of the Feb. 14 high school shootings in Parkland, Fla., and to advocate for gun control.
Students at Walton, Lassiter, Pope and other East Cobb high schools have said hundreds of students have signed an online petition to take part.
Individual schools have been given latitude to conduct their own observances as an alternative. Cobb schools cited safety reasons and conducting an undisrupted school day for its decision.
Related coverage
- Walton asks for extra security, schedules alternate event for walkout day
- Walkout leaders say signups ‘skyrocketed’ after Cobb schools decision
- Cobb schools don’t support walkouts; threaten disciplinary action
J.J. Daniel Middle School will conduct a 17-minute period of “observation and reflection” and a school-wide moment of silence. Students also will participate in a 17-day student “walk-up challenge,” in which they will be asked to get acquainted with 17 students they don’t already know.
Walton High School is holding a memorial service before classes as part of a #WhatsYour17 effort for students to engage in acts of kindness.
A visitor invited to attend the Walton event is Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who said in his remarks at Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting that such an alternative to a walkout “is making it into a teaching moment.”
The Cobb schools statement issued today didn’t indicate whether media wishing to cover Wednesday events would be considered “visitors” or not. East Cobb News was initially denied a request to cover the Walton service at the school level; we’ve got a call into the CCSD for clarification.
The Cobb office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was holding a press conference later this afternoon at Pope High School to support the right of students to walk out and “to make sure that any consequences which result are fair and not excessive or disparate.”
