County schools anticipate little impact from latest student ‘walkout’

Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Greg Drescher says he has received no information from any of the system’s school principals about plans for students here to join in a “National School Walkout” slated for tomorrow, Friday, April 20.

This latest national student walkout in support of stronger gun control laws in the wake of the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead and 16 injured is being held on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. That shooting by two disaffected Columbine students left 13 dead and 24 injured. The Douglas High shooting was done by a 19-year-old former student.

Contacted on April 19, Drescher said he does not know if the lack of pre-event information of potential student involvement here means there will be none. However, he did say the school system is discouraging participation in what would be the third national student walkout protest in just over two months since the Parkland, Florida shooting.

Led by Douglas High shooting survivors, students around the nation have become increasingly outspoken in organizing around the issue of too-easy access to guns, particularly semi-automatic weapons of the type used in Florida and many other recent mass shootings nationwide. Those activities peaked with the March 24 “March for Our Lives” in Washington, D.C. and multiple other sites across the nation. That was an event Drescher might observe occurred outside of school hours.

“We want to keep students in school – we can’t stop them if they really want to participate – but we are at the point of treating it like skipping class,” Drescher said on Thursday, April 19. Asked about the punishment for skipping classes, Drescher said it is relatively minor for first offenses – as in conversations with parents about the incident – but can become more severe if it becomes a habitual pattern of student behavior. Drescher also reiterated a point he made around the last national student walkout protest on March 14, exactly one month after the fatal Florida high school shooting.

“We want to give students the opportunity to have a voice – but find other ways than leaving class and school to achieve that,” he said. “We really haven’t heard about anything being planned, so we’ll deal with it on an individual basis if some choose to walk out. The reality is we’ve got to deal with what comes up – if 800 kids walk out we’ll have to reboot,” he added of a disciplinary strategy.

During that walkout of March 14, a total of 242 students left the county’s two high schools and two middle schools – of a total student population of about 1400 in those four schools – in support of a national student remembrance of the Parkland victims and a call for stricter gun control laws. That walkout which lasted 17 minutes – one minute for each Douglas High School fatality – resulted in no disciplinary consequences for participants in Warren’s public schools. Of that event Drescher said the school system neither discouraged nor encouraged the event.

According to a CNN story the April 20 protest is more open-ended, with an initial moment of silence for shooting victims slated, followed by actions determined by each school’s walkout leaders. The CNN story by Holly Yan cites a participatory list of 2,500 schools nationwide. The organizer of the April 20 event is identified as Lane Murdock, a 16-year-old sophomore from Ridgefield, Connecticut. Murdock cited her motivation as her own lack of an initial reaction to the Parkland, Florida shooting.

“When I found out about the shooting at MSD, I remember I didn’t have a huge reaction. And because of that, I knew I needed to change myself, and we needed to change this country. We should be horrified, and we’re not anymore. It’s American culture,” Murdock told CNN.