By Julia Rosier ’18 and Eddie Kiev ’20

Staples students participated in the nationwide walk-out on March 14 to honor the victims of Parkland, Florida and to advocate for political activism among students. The nationwide walkout was inspired by students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida after an intruder entered their building and killed 17 teachers and students on Feb. 14. Parkland students organized protests such as March for Our Lives, #NeverAgain and #EnoughisEnough to spread the word via social media to plan a nationwide walkout.

“I think it went really well, at first I was very worried about some of the administrative boundaries that were set,” Theo Koskoff ’18 said. “But afterwards, we were able to work around them and kind of break some rules. The administration has been very understanding of what we’ve decided to do and they’ve been very respectful of our free speech rights.”

Staples students walked out of class to the fieldhouse from 10 a.m. to 10:37 a.m. to honor the students from Parkland and listen to student speakers from the Social Activism Club, Student Assembly, JSA, Young Democrats and Young Republicans.

The walkout began with Student Assembly who read the names of the victims of the Parkland shooting and moment of silence of one minute and 17 seconds. Following Student Assembly, Kaela Dockray ’20 and Audrey Bernstein ’20 spoke about their experience of meeting the activists from Parkland. Other speakers included Ella Lederer ’18, Emma Greenberg ’18, Peter Clanton ’18, Olivia Payne ’18 and Monique Østbye ’18.

“I thought [the walkout] was good, people were able to voice their opinion in front of a large amount of people, pretty much the entire school,” Jake Glickman ’20 said. “It was cool to see how many people were there supporting the issue.”

Photo by Charlie Colasurdo ’18