Students across the United States joined forces after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida on February 14th to form a protest against gun violence. The students of Raymore Peculiar participated in this protest.
Sophomore Zoe Shriner was one to make the school aware of the event and signed Ray-Pec up on the official website for the walk out.
“I contacted news stations and I put it on the website. Laura Mussatti and Jaden Thomas helped put up the sticky notes in the hallway,” said Shriner.
Across the nation, if a student wanted to support the movement, they would walk out of their school on March 14th at 10:00am. They stayed outside for seventeen minutes in honor of the seventeen victims at Stoneman Douglas High School. Some made signs and brought flags.
“I went out because I feel like if we are old enough to fear for our lives, we are old enough to take a stand for what we believe in, and it’s important for kids to educate themselves and understand what’s going on. When at first everyone was sitting around talking I thought that was going to be how it went, and all of a sudden everyone went silent, and that was a really cool moment,” said Shriner.
However, silence was not what some of the students believed to be the way for protest. Freshman Katie Kuntz spoke out in the middle of the silent protest.
“My friend was struggling through the whole protest, she felt like we were kind of being repressed when the school changed the time and not just that it was a silent protest. We weren’t allowed to say what was on our minds. She kept saying ‘If only someone would say or do something,’ so I stood up because it was a bit ridiculous we were just standing there. I said ‘Why are we trying to make a change by doing the exact same thing for a designated amount of time’ and then everybody started yelling,” said Kuntz
These teens are very passionate about what they stand for and how this walkout should have been. The teachers were not allowed to join in on the walkout alongside their students, but they show their support anyway, including English teacher Paula Dampier.
“I support the student walk out, I think it’s really important. I think the problem was that the actual meaning behind the walkout got lost in communication between people. I feel like they got over politize for the wrong reasons, and I think that’s where the negative connotation came from. I think overall it was really awesome and really powerful. People want to judge and act like you guys don’t know what you’re talking about, but the best actions that happened during the civil rights movement era came through non-violent protest such as walkouts.” said Paula Dampier..
The walkout was quite an event with a big turn of student, and was step one for some out students. Many students, though, have educated themselves about the movement, helping them know where they stand, and are ready to speak their minds and stand up for what they believe.