Hundreds to thousands of students across Delaware poured out of schools Wednesday to protest school shootings and to call for more gun control laws.
Dover High students gathered on the football field to honor the Parkland victims. Student leaders read the names of victims and called for more gun control legislation.
Junior Andrew Honeycutt says the school does periodic lockdown drills. But he says his generation should be focusing on their education instead of learning how to survive a school shooting.
“It’s outrageous to me the fact we have to worry about something like this," he said. "I mean, the fact that we have think at all that there might be somebody who comes in with a gun and shoots one of my friends. I mean, that’s just something that’s horrifying to me.”
Sophomore Azaria Lewis cried as she read aloud the names of those who died. She says it hit home for her at that moment because those students were just like her.
“This is like real," she said. "Like this really happened and these kids lost their lives and their families are just painful. So, I kind of felt that pain also.”
At the end of the protests, the high school students walked back inside to continue classes. But some of the students who are 18 years old this year say they also plan to make their voices heard at the ballot box.
At Charter School of Wilmington and Cab Calloway School of the Arts, students who walked out gathered on the football field.
Most stayed on the field. But a group stood on the bleachers, where they held signs and during the event, spoke about the 17 victims of the Parkland school shooting before asking for participants to observe a moment of silence for each of those victims.
Cab Calloway student Megan Allen was part of the group on the bleachers. She says she walked out to let people know she doesn’t feel safe at school anymore.
“I always come into school and I have daydreams and nightmares that I won’t walk back out. It scares me and I’m tired of feeling this way, said Allen. “I keep hearing about stories of mass shooting in the media and I don’t hear about anything being done about it. To me, the problem is just getting worse and that scares me.”
Fellow Cab Calloway student Hannah Rubin says she was inspired by the survivors of the Parkland shooting and their willingness to speak out
“I got really involved in this effort at my school when I saw all the Parkland students becoming activists and not letting their school be just another shooting.”
Wilmington mayor Mike Purzycki and State Senator Bryan Townsend joined the students at Wilmington Charter and Cab Calloway. Each encouraged the students to persist in their efforts to bring change on the issues of gun violence and school safety.
“You have to approach elected officials and say ‘Thank your for your thoughts and prayers, [but] they’re not enough to help me realize my hopes and dreams. I’m hear to change your hearts and mind’,” Townsend told the students present. “You’ve got to have resolve and you can do it. The change and hope and progress we forge often happen because of young people, because of their energy and commitment to progress.”
Purzycki says he believes these walkouts can make a difference.
“It just keeps awareness on the issue,” said Purzycki. “And I think this many children going home to their parents and talking about an issue that resonates with them may just start to open some minds that have been closed for far too long.”
Allen and Rubin say they plan to continue to work on these issues within their school. They also appreciate school administrators being willing to work with them to make the walk out happen.
“It took a few tries going into the administration and working out a schedule that was OK for our school day and that even though it disrupted the school day, it wouldn’t be too disruptive,” said Rubin.
“I understand the administration at some schools are worried about student safety. My parents were also worried about it,: said Allen. “But at the end of the day, the fact that they were worried about not being able to guarantee our safety was the reason we were protesting in the first place.”
Despite disapproval from the school district, a group of Caesar Rodney High School students walked out of classes Wednesday to stand in solidarity with a national movement against gun violence.
An estimated 100 students lined the bleachers of the Caesar Rodney High School football field.
Media were kept at a distance, but could hear the students reading the names of the 17 people who were killed in the Parkland, Florida shooting.
Minutes later, the school held a forum where state lawmakers spoke about and answered questions on gun control and school safety.
“I think as we discuss school security and gun control we have to discuss it from two perspectives - one is the security - the obvious need for security for students in the school...but the other is we have to discuss it in light of our commitment to constitutional rights,” said Rep. Brian Bushweller (D-Dover).
Delaware lawmakers are considering several gun control bills this year. One piece of legislation would take guns away from someone considered to be danger to themselves or others. Other bills include stiffening penalties for straw purchases, banning bump stocks and raising the age someone can buy a gun.
As a college history and politics instructor, Representative Jeff Spiegelman (R-Clayton) said some of his students were recently talking about how in hindsight of a lot of past shootings “all the warning signs were there.”
“In the most recent event, we have a monster who people recognize as a monster who was still able to buy any sort of firearm despite everybody knowing, everybody knowing that there’s a potential problem there,” Spiegelman said. “All the warning signs were there.”
He continued, “I’m so very, very tired of saying ‘all the warning signs were there,’ but not doing anything about it.”
One student stood up to say “We do not feel safe in our schools because of these guns that people can own...Where do we draw the line of ownership? Where do we draw the line in somebody owning specific kinds of guns?”
Bushweller acknowledged the student’s question by saying that’s why it can take a while for bills to pass - as lawmakers try to determine exactly what they want to say.
“Where is the dividing line? How much of our 14th amendment righs should we be willing to give up in order to achieve the security we’re looking for?” Bushweller said.
Only a handful of students of the 30 who stood up had time to ask questions. Junior Gail Conk says she felt lawmakers dodged some of the questions - particularly about preventing school shootings in the future.
“The students who asked the questions gave incredibly informed questions and I am a little disappointed with the representatives’ answers because I feel that they were vague, they were dodging…” Conk said.
Conk, who wore a t-shirt that said “Devoted to a Better District” on the back, walked out with a hundred or so fellow students before the forum.
She said because the district refused to endorse a walk out and deleted comments opposing its decision on social media, she felt it was meaningful for her to participate.
“It showed we were doing this despite the possibility of being punished - we were standing up to what we believed in,” Conk said.
To her, the national conversation about guns that grew after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting hit a lot closer to home than it did when the shooting at the Pulse night club and other instances happened. At Stoneman Douglas High, people around her age died.
“It hasn’t helped like I’ll be sitting in a movie theater and I’ll be thinking about the possibility of a shooter entering,” Conk said.
Conk plans to be at the polls in November, hoping to vote for politicians who will listen to her voice as well as other “politically active” people from her generation, she said.
Caesar Rodney senior Steven Ferrandino said he also feels the Parkland shooting serves as a wakeup call for politicians to listen to young students about gun control.
“This has been going on for quite a long time and it is a terrible shooting. But it just keeps happening,” Ferrandino said.
In February, Caesar Rodney Superintendent Kevin Fitzgerald said in a post on social media he could not support a walkout. Some students felt they were being censored after the district deleted responses opposing Fitzgerald’s statement - and many decided to walk out regardless of the possibility of discipline.
Junior Wyatt Patterson said teachers took down names of students that did walk out. It is unclear what, if any, discipline students will face.
Delaware Public Media reached out the the school district, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Other walkout reactions around the state
Superintendent Richard Gregg from the Christina School District in Wilmington said in a March 12 statement the district's administration supported students expressing themselves safely and peacefully.
"If students choose to participate in a planned school walkout or other form of respectful, peaceful protest, we encourage our school leaders to support them," said Gregg, acknowledging administrators saw the walkouts as an opportunity for students to raise awareness about school safety.
On March 8, Selbyville's Indian River School District Superintendent Mark Steele sent a letter to parents saying he could not support the walkout due to concerns about student safety.
“The overwhelming concern that I have is the safety of the students while outside in an open area," Steele said. "Staff would be required to remain in the building with students who are not participating in the events. We are not able to provide the same level of safety as we can with the students being inside the building.”
The Cape Henlopen School District in Lewes allowed students to walk out. Students released statements saying the purpose was to remember the lives lost in Parkland, rather than take a stance on guns.
Milford School District held an "inside safe zone" at Milford High around 10 a.m., allowing students to walk out, but marking them unexcused for their time away from class.
On the variety of responses from school districts across the state, University of Delaware Sociology and Criminal Justice Professor Dr. Aaron Kupchik said he was surprised to see some districts keep students from being a part of the national movement by expressing concerns about school safety.
“We can’t guarantee anybody’s safety anywhere at any time," Kupchik said. "Life has risks unfortunately. The risk of something happening to students when they walk out is exceptionally low.”
And while school shootings are horrific events, they are exceptionally rare, Kupchik said.
“Compared to the number of kids who die in car accidents, or the flu, or other diseases we don’t think of as so fearful, school violence, thankfully, is lower than it’s been in a generation overall. And these school shootings are very scary, but they are much less common than people realize,” he said.
