Walkout: Nearly Every Student At SJ All-Girls School Takes Part

SANTA CLARA VALLEY, CA — Nearly all of the 800 students who attend Presentation High School in San Jose participated in the student-organized walkout in honor of the victims of the fatal mass shooting in Florida a month ago today. The 17-year-old president of the all-girls high school's speech and debate club, Aarushi Sahejpal, announced the time on the intercom system, cuing girls to flow onto the pathway in front of the school as well as the grass on the sides. Teachers acted as crowd control to keep students away from the street.

Many students were holding posters with messages like "Am I next?" and "Lives over guns," which were made Tuesday when more than 100 students accepted student organizers' invitation to help out.

The action was put together after three students individually told administrators that they would walk out and wanted to know what the consequences would be.

"There was no question of whether we were going to walk out or not, it was just a question of what would happen," 16-year-old organizer Isabel Bellot said.

Luckily, vice principal Tim Case was supportive and the school provided rooms for Sahejpal, Bellot and 18-year-old Allison Baroni to plan the details as well as funding to create posters and a Snapchat filter to use
on campus for a few hours.

The organizers wanted to use social media to their advantage as much as they could, but faced an issue when Snapchat told them in a review process that the filters they proposed, which included "#neveragain" and "end gun violence" were too political in an email.

"In the review process, the email said that if it was going to be political, it had to say it was paid for by someone," Sahejpal said. "So we added that it was paid for by 'the empowered youth.'"

The Presentation High students took 17 minutes, one for each life lost on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, for a prayer service and statements to show the community "what youth in democracy look like," Sahejpal said.

Two moments of silence were taken for the Parkland victims.

Bellot announced that the school was going to recreate the response of a peace pledge that a Presentation class created after the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999. The pledge was available in the school chapel after the walkout to sign so that students can "continue to be a part of Pres history."

One of the moments of silence was also dedicated to victims of police brutality and actions of violence with guns, because "it's not an isolated incident, and it's happened way too many times," Sahejpal said.

Before students roamed back into their classrooms, Sahejpal reminded students that their activism toward the cause of gun violence prevention does not end with the walkout.

"I can't wait until a day where we won't have to rally anymore, because there won't be any more mass shootings," she said. "When Generation Z has the ability to vote, I hope that you all vote for policies that protect students, not NRA money."

"I don't want to have to worry about my teachers being armed," Bellot said. "I want my teachers to arm me with the knowledge that I need to go out into our community and make real change."

Sahejpal, Bellot and Baroni also put together a letter-writing campaign during their lunch period so that students can write to their representatives about their need for increased school safety measures.

The Presentation High student organizers said they planned the walkout to empower all the women who attended the school and show them that political activism isn't so hard to do after all. However, they acknowledged the privilege they had to be able to do so.

"A lot of students are at risk of expulsion and suspension" for participating in the walkouts around the country, Bellot said. "Thankfully, we aren't."

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By Bay City News Service

Main photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images