Del Mar, Redwood students take stand against gun violence
But Del Mar kids say administration co-opted event in moving it indoors, cutting it short
By JEFF DEMPSEY
jdempsey@thearknewspaper.com
Hundreds of Tiburon Peninsula students left class at 10 a.m. March 14 as part of the National School Walk-Out, joining tens of thousands around the U.S. in demanding action on gun violence after the Valentine’s Day slaying of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
But at Del Mar Middle School, some students were upset with the administration’s changes to the student-organized event, accusing officials of co-opting and softening the protest as they moved it indoors and cut it short.
Despite the rain, thousands of students across the Bay Area participated outdoors in a public, visible show of unity — including at Redwood High School in Larkspur — while students across the East Coast including Vermont and Maine braved freezing temperatures and falling snow.
At Del Mar, however, Principal Brian Lynch moved the protest indoors, saying it was for safety reasons and that staff had to “create some constraints.”
That riled several students, who said the choices were disrespectful to the victims they intended to honor.
“Why, because it was raining? People lost their lives,” seventh-grader Catherine Talmon De L’Almee said after the event. “You’re worried about cold? Bring a jacket. You’re worried about rain? Go to the library. Let the people who want to protest go outside and actually memorialize (the victims).”
On the gym stage sat 17 empty chairs, while a giant 17 was positioned on the floor in orange — a color adopted by the gun-control movement because it’s the color hunters wear to prevent being shot. Many teachers, including Lynch, wore orange shirts.
Lynch led the gathering, saying the hope was to memorialize the victims of the Stoneman Douglas shooting and to raise the voices of the students at Del Mar. He then named each of the victims, followed by a few moments of silence after a name was called.
But Talmon De L’Almee was also upset that the event was cut to 10 minutes instead of the planned 17.
“It was supposed to be a minute for each person,” she said. “We did it for maybe 10 seconds each.”
Lynch said in an interview that he wanted to be mindful that the walkout was a student-led movement.
“I kind of want to continue to take a step back,” he said. “This was really about empowering students to raise their voices, and I want to be mindful of that. I’m incredibly touched by this, and I am curious to see what our students will do next.”
Talmon De L’Almee didn’t see it that way. With administrators taking control of the event, she said she felt they co-opted the protest and reshaped it into something with which they were more comfortable.
“This all started with the kids, and the kids started doing it because they wanted to be safe,” she said. “Us teens all connected without the adults. We connected because we all felt for each other. That was our thing. And now the adults got involved and they changed it.”
Gillian Reynolds, a seventh-grader, said while she was also disappointed with the brevity of the walkout, she is still proud to have participated. She said she hopes the protests all over the country collectively make an impact.
“I don’t want to have to wake up in the morning and be worried that it’s going to be my last goodbye to my parents,” she said. “I hate the fact that we have to be afraid at a place where we are supposed to learn and have fun and make friends.”
Reynolds said she believes the national walkout will open some eyes and, she added, this is only the beginning.
“People are going to keep talking about this,” she said. “They’re going to keep being upset about it.”
Seventh-grader Chase Cordova said students will probably take time in the near future to honor the Stoneman Douglas victims with a full 17-minute ceremony.
“We’ll probably do it out on the blacktop during one of our breaks,” she said. “Even though our breaks are only 10 minutes.”
Seventh-grader Emily Sisuphan said she participated in the walkout to advocate for an assault rifle ban.
Margaret Abbott, also a seventh-grader, said she is a supporter of the Second Amendment but doesn’t think it gives the right to purchase a weapon on a whim.
“I think we need to make it harder to get a gun,” she said. “And I think we need to also (talk about) health care because the people who do this, I believe, are not in their right mind. If they could get more help maybe this wouldn’t happen.”
Down the road at the private K-8 St. Hilary Catholic School, students left class a 10 a.m. for a prayer service in the gym to “support peace in our world and show support for safe schools.”
“Due to the age of our students the focus will not be on gun violence or the political debate that is taking place,” Principal Marie Bordeleau wrote in a notice to parents.
Other private and parochial grade schools across the nation did participate in the walkout; 20 first-graders, ages 6–7, were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. A group recently placed 7,000 pairs of shoes at the U.S. Capitol to represent the roughly 7,000 children killed by guns since the Sandy Hook shooting, according to Centers for Disease Control estimates.
At Redwood High School, the main public school that serves the Tiburon Peninsula, hundreds of students filed out of class to gather around the school’s Kreitzburg Amphiteater.
As the rain picked up, a speaker took the floor and asked students to raise their hands if they have ever felt unsafe at Redwood.
Hundreds responded with raised hands.
Student Rob Hoffman, a Sausalito resident, took the microphone and said he was “sick” of the school shootings and encouraged students to register to vote.
“We are the change that will fix the problems with America,” Hoffman said to applause from the crowd.
Tiburon resident Irvin Safavi, a junior, said that while the walkout was meant to show solidarity for the students affected by the most recent shooting at Stoneman Douglas, it was also in response to the “constant stream of school shootings” over the past several years.
“It just shows how much people really want change, that they’re willing to go out in this really rainy weather and be willing to stand out here to (make) change,” Safavi said.
Safavi added he specifically wanted to see stricter background checks, a ban on assault-style weapons and restrictions on the ages at which people can purchase weapons.
“I feel like a lot of teens don’t get their voice heard, because … they don’t get allowed to vote,” Safavi said. “So this is our biggest way to show politicians that we want a change in terms of gun control.”
Jeff Dempsey is The Ark’s assistant editor for production and the youth and sports reporter. Reach him at 415–944–4561.
