Maryland high schools join national walkout

By Andrea Durán, Ben Laing, Jacob Porter
Anthony Petro and Wilbert Villatoro
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers

Hundreds of students across Maryland joined a national 17-minute walk out of class Wednesday to honor each student killed exactly one month ago in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Some students vacated their classes at 10 a.m. and headed for the windy outdoors under the threat of punishment by school officials. Others had support from both teachers and principals.

“No change is going to be made sitting in class doing nothing,” said Samantha Jaffe, a junior at Severna Park High School in Anne Arundel County, where the principal warned of disciplinary action.

At Loch Raven High School in Towson, however, Shikha Basnet, 15, bragged that students organized the entire protest while administrators assured them they would not be punished or disciplined by teachers.

“We did it to hopefully get a message through to the government: ‘No justice, no peace,’ ” said Basnet. “It was a peaceful protest, no violence or anything involved. We tried to get our message through to the government and then went back to school. We are doing this to receive a better, safer environment with no fear of dying.”

The organizer of the national event, the Youth EMPOWER program, had asked students to stage the protest at 10 a.m. in each time zone. Tabitha St. Bernard, the national coordinator for the program, which is the youth arm of Women’s March Inc., said that the logistics were youth-led and depended on each school.

Generally, the students are calling for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, expanded background checks for gun-buyers and other stricter gun laws. Some Maryland schools have encouraged students to express their beliefs, especially those with gun-related incidents.

Just 29 days ago, Loch Raven High School was placed on lockdown for nearly an hour when a 14-year-old student brought a pellet gun to school. No one was injured and the student was arrested.

Perry Hall High School in Nottingham grappled with its own in-school shooting in 2012 when a student walked into the building with a loaded gun after a dispute with a classmate. A student was injured.

“Kids are always vulnerable in school,” said Perry High Principal Andrew Last. “Anyone can just come into a school with a gun. If a gunman were to come, it would between the hours of the start of the school day and ending of the school day.”

The students have the right to free speech, said Last, stressing that he supports the students’ involvement in the walk out. Of the 1,200 students at Perry High, he said about 250 participated to show their support.

The walkout activities took many forms. Students at Glen Burnie High School, also in Anne Arundel County, were handed slips of paper with the name of one victim. When the morning announcements were broadcasted in the school building, students read each name during class. In reading the name, the student stood and gave a brief biography of that person.

In addition, 17 students held balloons and a picture of one victim during the walkout and released a balloon when the name of the victim was read aloud.

“The walk out is really important and a great thing,” said 17-year-old senior Kayla Gindhart. “It shows that not just Florida is affected by this and, as a nation, we need to change. Hopefully this sparks something.”

However, some Maryland high school leaders discouraged students from walking out. Severna Park Principal Patrick Bathras told students days earlier they would be disciplined if they leave school grounds during the school day. As a compromise, however Bathras met behind closed doors with a small group of students and yielded to their request to hold a protest in the auditorium, gym, or lobby, action that had been encouraged by the County Board of Public Schools.

What Bathras had proposed was for Severna Park to have a normal school day with students devoting 30 minutes of designated advisory time to discussions about the walk out. He had suggested a number of activities, including writing letters to Congress or to the president to advocate for safer schools. Another activity he recommended was “making friends with 17 people you normally wouldn’t” to honor the fallen students.

Those suggestions were not enough for Samantha Jaffe and her twin sister, Haley. The juniors participated in the unauthorized walkout at Severna Park, joining 75 other students and 10 parents.

Administrators recorded the names of every student that walked out as Bathras stood outside to watch the students leave the campus.

“The school isn’t allowed to endorse it,” said Haley. “We have to accept and face the consequences for walking out.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland released a fact sheet titled, “Know Your Rights: Student Walkouts in Public Schools” and a press release that urged Harford County schools to not ban students from participating in the walk out. School leaders issued a “learning module” as a way to encourage students to air concerns about the shootings and recent events.

In Allegany County, school students stayed on campus but placed 17 desks with the names of the Florida victims in the gymnasium.

“Under the First Amendment, schools may not use more severe punishment for expressing political views than missing class,” said Meredith Curtis Goode, a media representative for the ACLU of Maryland. “If students feel like their rights have been violated, we want to hear from them and want them to call our hotline.”