During National School Walkout, California Students Break Open Gate

On Wednesday, March 14, students at more than 3,000 schools across the country participated in National School Walkout Day to show solidarity with the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the one-month anniversary of the school shooting that killed 17 people and demand gun control reform. But while many students were able to protest peacefully, and encouraged by school administrators to do so, others said they faced obstacles that made the walkout a bit more challenging. Among them were the teenagers at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, CA, who broke through a gate to get off school grounds for the 17-minute protest.

According to the East Bay Times, Mt. Diablo officials locked the main campus gates prior to the 10 a.m. scheduled walkout, and students broke through one of them at 10:15 a.m. before continuing to march and chant “enough is enough” along the street outside campus. When reached by phone, an administrator at the Mt. Diablo Superintendent’s office told Teen Vogue that there is a public street that runs through campus and the gate that students broke through is locked every school day to prevent cars from entering. She also noted that there was an open exit available, which students did not use. “These students, during a time of remembrance, chose to show their protest by breaking a gate in the street rather than walking to an open exit nearby,” Superintendent Nellie Meyer said in a written statement shared with Teen Vogue.

Some students told the Times, while that particular back gate is indeed usually locked during school hours, a gate near Mt. Diablo’s main entrance is typically open. On Wednesday, it was locked, which prompted protesters to head to the back gate that was eventually broken open. The Mt. Diablo administrator, however, told Teen Vogue on the phone that account isn’t accurate, “to [her] knowledge.”

While Mt. Diablo students did intend to participate in the national walkout both on and off campus, for those who spoke to the Times, breaking through a physical barrier wasn’t part of the plan. “That was not my idea of a peaceful protest,” Lila Souza, a sophomore who helped organize the event, told the Times.

Even so, she was disappointed by the fact that school staff seemingly tried to deter students with a physical barrier against walking out of campus. The Times reported that those who did make it out through the gate were quickly rerouted back to school by administrators who threatened to call parents.

Mt. Diablo principal Loren Barbosa told the Times that he wasn’t necessarily against a walkout, but that the student government had decided not to do one, so the school wasn’t prepared for such an event. Meyer said in her statement that schools throughout the district had activities planned to honor victims of school shootings. “Speeches were given, tears were shed, and adults were directed not to stop any students from walking out,” she said. At Mt. Diablo High School, the Times reported that there was an announcement made at 10 a.m. to commemorate the victims.

Mt. Diablo students weren’t the only ones who felt they were being deterred from actively participating in the protest on Wednesday. According to ThinkProgress, school officials at Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, NY reportedly blocked doorways to keep the junior high students from leaving the building. New York City Department of Education had released information prior to the walkouts that said “Middle and high schools will not prevent students from participating in the walkout, even if students do not have parental permission.”

An anonymous source from the school told ThinkProgress that students were told, “If you wanted to walk out so badly, you should have had your parents come pick you up,” some students were threatened with suspension, and one official told a student that “no one cares if you walk out,” according to the source. Students were also reportedly told that participating in the walkout would be unsafe.

In Greenville, South Carolina, there were reports of officials attempting to limit walkouts at multiple schools. Students at Riverside High School told Greenville Online that teachers blocked classroom doors and officials walked through the halls telling students to return to class. At Wade Hampton High School (also in the Greenville County School District), officials stood in front of the doors at the time of the walkout, according to photos obtained by the site. But Greenville County Schools district spokesperson Beth Brotherton told Teen Vogue that there weren't efforts to stifle the walkouts. "Despite news reports to the contrary, we gave very clear direction to our principals that no one should block doors or prohibit students from participating in this walkout," she said. She also noted that administrators stood at exits to take names of students walking out so they "could account for their safe return," and that an alternative event at Wade Hampton took place near the exits in the main lobby.

Prior to the walkout, the school district announced its decision to deny press access to the schools on the day of the protest and discouraged students from walking out, instead offering indoor alternatives (like 17 seconds of silence. Brotherton told Teen Vogue this decision was made for safety reasons. "Walking out of a secure building at a highly publicized, designated time to call for greater gun control seemed to us to provide an easy target for someone in an unstable frame of mind," she said. "To have such an event occur at 34 locations across our district (middle and high school sites) stretched both district and law enforcement resources too thin for our comfort."

She also expressed concerns that sanctioning an event for gun control would lead to a simultaneous event for gun rights. "While we don't mind opposing points of view being expressed in a stable environment and believe that these are important topics that need to be discussed in our society, we were again concerned about the level of supervision needed to secure such an activity," she said.

Jeannie Taylor, the stepmother of a student at Riverside High School, took issue with the “safety reasons” logic. “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?” she told Greenville News.

Brotherton said that the more than 1,000 Greenville County School students who partook in the walkouts will receive warnings for cutting class (which she said some people are calling a "referral") but that there won't be further consequences.

At Pensacola High School in Pensacola, FL, students who walked out were reportedly handed slips of paper that read, “Malcolm Thomas, Escambia County School District Superintendent, does not support a student walk out. If you leave campus, then there will be discipline consequences for refusing to follow directions at Pensacola High School,” the Pensacola News Journal reported. Thomas himself told the Journal that he wasn’t aware of those papers and said that the four students who did walk out would not likely be punished. Teen Vogue reached out to Pensacola High School for comment but has not received a response.

In Lakeland, Florida, students at McKeel Academy of Technology were reportedly warned via an intercom announcement that anyone who participated in the walkout would “receive a detention at minimum,” according to local NBC News affiliate WFLA. Some chose to walk-out anyway. A student who participated told The Ledger that the doors were locked when they tried to leave. Shortly after the scheduled 10 a.m. time, the school enacted a fire drill.

In an email to parents sent later on Wednesday, which a parent posted to Facebook and WFLA published, McKeel principal Joyce Powell reportedly said there was “considerable misinformation” spreading. She noted that the school allowed students to participate in an event at 8:30 a.m., and that they’re required to conduct a monthly fire drill, which they chose to align with the event to “give those students who wished to participate, at the nationally recognized time, an opportunity to do so without causing a separate disruption to the school day.” She continued, “No students were encouraged to participate nor were they discouraged to participate.”

But junior Katie Gallo, who organized the walkout, told The Ledger that the 8:30 a.m. walkout defeated the purpose of being “unified with other students” nationwide, and that the 10 a.m. fire drill undermined their planned walkout. She said “many students realized what was going on immediately because it was not a coincidence,” and that those who didn’t support the protest were angry that they were forced to leave the school because of the drill.

And sophomore Reagan Craig told The Ledger that the drill scared students, considering the Parkland shooter pulled the Douglas High fire drill, causing chaos before shooting and killing 17 people. “A lot of kids were scared maybe an active shooter would come in and hurt them because they knew the walkout was coming,” Reagan told The Ledger. “I think the way they organized this was insensitive and disgusting and I know it did scare a lot of students, seeing as though a month ago the events occurred at (Douglas High) with the fire alarm being pulled.” Teen Vogue reached out to McKeel Academy of Technology but has not received a response.

On a day when students around the nation were making their voices heard about gun control and the fear they have for their own lives, others expressed frustration at what they felt was an effort by their administrations to keep them quiet. “We’re all students at high school, we’re all directly affected by current gun laws,” Gabrielle Vines, one of the four students who walked out of Pensacola High School, told the Pensacola News Journal. “And we don’t think that we’re safe in school with our current laws and we want to change them, we want to walk out for that change and not be bullied and scared by the school administration into not saying anything.”

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