How This Ohio High School Is Supporting #Enough After Their Walkout Was Banned

It’s been exactly one month since the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and some have chosen a proactive way to commemorate the date. On Wednesday (March 14), thousands of students walked out of their classrooms as part of the #Enough! National School Walkout to raise awareness about school safety and gun violence. The march, organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, occurred at 10 a.m. and lasted 17 minutes — one minute for each victim killed in the Parkland shooting.

But not all school districts were on board with the planned protest, meaning some students had no choice but to stay indoors, or else face punishment. At schools like Mentor High, though, students have taken a creative approach around their school’s limitations and chosen not to walk out, but to walk in.

Mentor High School in Mentor, Ohio, sits close to the Lake Erie shoreline, roughly 20 miles northeast of Cleveland. About 2,550 students attend the school, and they’re led by 17-year-old senior April Gable, the student body president. Gable describes Mentor as a “super active school” that boasts “incredible” academics and “unbeatable” sports teams. The city of Mentor hosts a festival every year called Better in Mentor, and Gable says that phrase perfectly describes the sense of community in the city and in the school itself.

April Gable (center)

Like most other high schools around the country, things have been different at Mentor ever since the tragedy at Stoneman Douglas last month. Gable was in Florida for an international baton competition when the shooting happened, and upon returning to school the following week, she “immediately” noticed a change.

“When you walked through the halls, there was just tension,” she said. “Mentor High School is a pretty bubbly school, and we have so many kids, so the hallways are usually very loud and very difficult to maneuver. But the day we came back, it was just silence. You could just feel it in the air.”

Gable and the rest of her student government members immediately got to work brainstorming how they could stand in solidarity with Parkland, and they got wind of a national walkout slated for February 21, one week after the shooting. They decided it was a perfect opportunity to showcase their newfound passion for activism, and started spreading the word among students via every social media channel available.

“We wanted to do it as soon as possible,” Gable explained. “We got told to wait until the March 14 one, ‘just wait so we can figure things out.’ But we said, ‘No no no, the February 21 one is going to get people talking. It’s going to start a spark, it’s going to get people thinking about the idea of this.’ So it felt significant to start it on February 21.”

Unfortunately, that hastily planned walkout didn’t turn out so smoothly. First, school administrators got wind of the walkout plans before the 21st, and they sent an email to students warning them that there would be repercussions as if they were cutting class, because walking out is considered “civil disobedience.” Gable admits “a lot of students were apprehensive” after that. Then, they couldn't agree on a designated time; most other schools were staging their walkouts at noon, but Gable and her student government members decided 2:05 p.m. would be better. Two different walkouts ended up happening at two different times that day, and the school wasn’t happy.

Mentor High School students with homemade #NeverAgain signs

Gable estimates between 400 to 500 students participated in the walkouts that day — that’s about one-fifth of the school, and it didn’t feel like enough of a statement. On top of that, she had a tense meeting with her principal, Andy Fetchik, who told her that she put him in an awkward position by not running her plans by him first. So after that initial walkout, Gable and some of her fellow students met with Fetchik to try to reach a compromise for the national walkout on March 14. Citing safety concerns, weather, and pushback from school administrators, Fetchik told the students that it wasn’t in their best interest to stage another demonstration. Still, he wanted to support them — Fetchik was the principal at nearby Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, when a shooter killed three people in 2012, so the movement hit close to home for him. Gable eventually decided that working with Fetchik and the rest of the school administrators would be the best solution.

“We had to realize that the February 21 walkout was meant to get their attention, and now if we go and defy their request to help us and work hand in hand with us, we’re just kind of eliminating our resources,” she explained. “To go against their wishes just kind of felt pointless to us. We still advocate for students across the country to walk out, to march, to get in contact with your administration. But for us, it just felt right [to do something else].”

Gable and Mentor High School principal Andy Fetchik

Together, Fetchik, Gable, and the rest of the student government came up with the idea of doing a “walk-in” so that more students could be involved. Gable admits there “definitely was some pushback” from students who were adamant about doing another walkout, but ultimately, she explained, “this would allow more students to take part in it and it’d be more personal.”

“Some students had said, ‘I want to participate in the movement but I can’t — my parents won’t let me, I don’t feel comfortable doing it, I don’t want to walk out of class because then everybody would look at me.’ So we said, ‘Hold up, why don’t we just do it so everybody can do it?’” she explained. “Because I know there’s not a single person in this school who’s in support of school shootings, so we said, ‘Why don’t we bring it to them instead of forcing students to walk out?’”

On Wednesday at 10 a.m. — instead of being part of the movement to walk out of schools — Mentor held its inaugural walk-in. During the school’s third class of the day, Gable, Fetchik, senior James Elliott, and junior Fintan Bracken got on the P.A. system and read the names of the 17 victims from Stoneman Douglas, as well as the names of the three victims from Chardon. They also advocated for more empathy and kindness among students (“We said, ‘Talk to the kid you usually don’t talk to who sits alone at lunch, say hello to somebody,’” Gable said), and then held a 17-second moment of silence.

Some might argue that choosing not to do a walkout goes agains the very, meant-to-be-radical purpose of a walkout, but Gable still feels they made the right choice opting for an alternate plan.

“I agree that it is a little different than what was advertised and what is being done nationally,” she said. “With us doing this walk-in, it kind of builds strength within our own school so that other schools that would like to participate in the walkout but can’t, can do something as well to show their unification.”

She added, “I think [walkouts and walk-ins] both hold effectiveness in their own respects. I think the idea of the walkouts and the marches is very crucial because it shows action. But I also feel that us getting on the announcements and pausing classes for a moment was really beneficial because it reached more students. I’m proud of what we did.”

For five ways you can take action on gun violence, head over to Everytown.org.

Original Article