Students desire to partake in March 14 Walkout, board hesitant
The February Clearview Regional Board of Education monthly meeting was filled with passion.
In what is more often than not a brief aspect of the meeting, this time the public comments portion lasted more than an hour.
In the wake of the school shooting that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 students and staff died, the topic of school safety was heavily discussed. The recent Florida shooting surpassed the 1999 Columbine shooting when 13 died, as the deadliest high school shooting in the United States.
In the days following the shooting, multiple gun control advocacy organizations put out the call for a national school walkout. One gaining much attention is the Women’s March’s Youth EMPOWER group. On Feb. 16, two days after the shooting, the group tweeted:
“Enough is enough!
Women’s March Youth EMPOWER is calling for students, teachers, and allies to take part in a #NationalSchoolWalkout for 17 minutes at 10am on March 14, 2018. Join us in saying #ENOUGH!http://bit.ly/EnoughMarch14.”
According to the group’s site, organizers are encouraging students, staff, parents and administrators across the country at 10 a.m. to walk out of school for 17 minutes, each minute in honor of one of the 17 people who lost their lives in the Florida shooting.
During the public comments portion of the meeting, Anna Kilpatrick, a Clearview student, addressed the board and made reference to the national walkout.
“Clearview administration has explicitly stated that students are not to participate in this event despite the safe ways that other districts are organizing it. Gun violence continues to plague this nation’s schools,” she said.
Kilpatrick continued to say students should be able to “protest laws or lack thereof” in an attempt to persuade Congress and the government to implement gun control measures.
Superintendent John Horchak stated, “I am struggling with the best way to handle some of the issues that have come up that our country is trying to face.”
He continued to address the student and the rest of the room by explaining that, as of right now, the board of education is not in favor of the students leaving the building.
Horchak referenced a recent conversation with local law enforcement about the the walkout and explained having a set day and time for students to walk out of the building could lead to potential danger.
“I didn’t want the misinformation to be out there that we are not supporting this effort, because I think we are. There are different ways to achieve the same end,” he said.
Horchak and other school administrators plan to have further conversations with law enforcement and are also awaiting direction from the district and county about the topic of the walkout.
The discussion blossomed to include voices of multiple audience and board members, all the while remaining civil.
Sherry Dvorak, board member, shared her views: “If everybody in the nation is walking out at the same time, I don’t think as a board or as a parent, I want my kid to be a sitting duck.”
Dvorak leaned to the side of finding another way to participate in the national walkout day, rather than actually walking out.
“As a mother and board member, I do not think those kids should be outside at the same time as the rest of the nation,” she said. “If something happened to one child on our watch, how do you justify that? We are not cowering but you are asking for trouble.”
Mantua resident Amy Porter added, “I think that our goal here is to educate our children to be civically minded, critical thinkers. And I don’t think that we can do that if we don’t allow them the choice to do this. And I have this belief that I’d rather go down doing something that I believe in than to watch others go down for something I did nothing about.”
Porter said she believes it is possible to participate in the walkout by actually walking out and doing it safely.
“I believe this could have great momentum for change, which is what we need to protect our students and our teachers and our high schools,” she said, “because it is not just about our students, we want our teachers to be safe as well.”
Several other members of the audience voiced their opinion.
Horchak said the board is open to looking at many options and called on parents and community members for support.
“If we can find and craft a comfortable solution that our local police can endorse, I will present that to the board,” he said. “Our egos are not so vague that we think we have the best solution.”
The discussion led to the topic of multiple safety measures at the school. Horchak said a potential move may be to suspend students who open doors for people, even other students, who are outside of the building.
The superintendent referenced a recent incident that, despite multiple signs around the school stating not to do so, a student opened a door to the outside and let a person in the building.
“They don’t blink. We constantly tell them don’t do it, don’t do it. We put the signs up and post everything. We struggle with that scenario,” he said. “We could spend $50 million on the world’s best security, if you have somebody who doesn’t realize that … make that person walk to the front of the school … It may seem a bit extreme to have a suspension for opening a door, but in today’s times, I think it’s warranted.”
Horchak mentioned the addition of the lobby guard that was implemented this year. All visitors to the school enter through the main entrance and are required to hand their driver’s license through the window to the guard who then scans it initiating a police background check.
Horchak also mentioned students and teachers partake in eight safety drills throughout the year, and in each classroom is an “emergency brochure” detailing the process of how to carryout shutdowns and other processes.
On all classroom doors, a magnetic strip is placed over the latch, and in case of an emergency, teachers are able to remove the strip and the door will be locked to the outside.
The superintendent also made mention of the security cameras throughout the school and that they are able to be live streamed by local law enforcement. The school plans to install more cameras in the near future.
Horchak informed the room that in the coming days, meetings are planned with law enforcement to discuss national walkout day and future safety measure at the school. Mention of a forum to include parents was made, more on that when the information is available.
