Bayside High School Students Join National Walkout

BAYSIDE, QUEENS -- Hundreds of students left their classrooms and flooded the courtyard of Bayside High School on Wednesday to join a nationwide protest for stricter gun laws on the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 17 of their peers in Parkland, Florida.

Armed with homemade posters and their voices, Bayside students began filtering into the courtyard at 10 a.m. for the walkout, where they braved frigid temperatures for a symbolic 17 minutes - one for each person killed when 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.

Among the students was Sean Friedman, a junior at Bayside High, who felt it was his duty to join the walkout and other upcoming gun safety protests until lawmakers take action.

"It’s time for us to make a change," Friedman told Patch. "College students did it during the Vietnam war, now it’s our turn to do this for the shootings."

Chants of "We call B.S." and "Hey, ho. The NRA has got to go" rang out from the courtyard as Bayside students protested for gun control laws that would ban assault weapons, mandate background checks on gun sales and allow courts to disarm people who exhibit violent behavior.

Their demands are shared by students of roughly 2,500 other schools across the country that participated in the National School Walkout, which students planned with help from the Women's March organizers.

Bayside locals met the protests with a warm welcome. Some honked from their cars in support of the protest while others surrounded the courtyard's chain-link fence with signs of their own.

Among the bystanders was Margaret, who asked that her last name be withheld. Her daughter is a freshman at Bayside High, and Margaret said ever since the Parkland shooting, she can't quite shake the lingering fear that now comes with sending her daughter off to school.

"I don't want to feel like my daughter is basically a sitting duck," she said. "I just can't imagine how she would react if something like (Parkland) were to happen. She wouldn't even know what to do."

Margaret was joined by local members of the national group "Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America," who lined the courtyard with signs that read "No More Gun Violence" and "Disarm Hate." Though their children didn't yet attend Bayside High, the mothers showed up to support the students' message.

"We have kids in elementary and middle school, so it still very much affects us," said Linda Marsala, who spoke on behalf of the group. "We're fed up, and I'm so happy that students are fed up too."

Margaret said she wishes Bayside High - and New York City schools in general - would have done more to reassure parents their children were safe in the weeks following the Florida shooting.

"They were willing to help us out and give us this time, but other than that it just seemed like they didn’t want this to happen - It’s like they didn’t want to be involved."

Bayside High School representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Friedman said he understood why school officials might shy away from publicity the walkout could bring, but he wanted them to understand that's exactly what he and his peers want.

"We want to be heard at this point," he said.

Lead photos via Danielle Woodward/Patch.