Women\'s March
On Wednesday, March 14, millions of students and staff from across the country will walk out of their classrooms at 10 a.m. local time to protest gun violence in schools and show support for gun control measures. So far, nearly 3,000 or more school groups have RSVP’d with the Women’s March noting their intention to participate, although there will likely be many more than that. These groups include high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, and colleges. Despite what you may have heard, they won’t be walking out all day. Instead, they will walk out for 17 minutes, one minute of silence for each student and staff member killed by Nikolas Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Participants are also encouraged to wear orange. But how can you know if your school or schools in your area, near you, are participating? This article will show you how, and includes a full list of every school that is taking part.
To see if there’s an event near you, visit the Action Network here and enter your ZIP code. Or visit The Women’s March website and enter your City, State, or Country into the search bar (or, alternatively, click on the map to see what’s happening in your region.) Below is a SCRIBD document that lists every National School Walkout event in the country that’s taking place on March 14, as provided by the Women’s March. The number of schools participating is hard to grasp. The SCRIBD document is 371 pages long and more than 200,000 words. You can search the document for your school’s or city’s name. However, some are also listed by the school’s initials or the school district’s initials. If you don’t see your school listed, don’t despair. Some schools didn’t place the school name in the event title when registering, so their event will just show a generic title in this document instead. So be sure and check the Women’s March website link above if your school isn’t in this SCRIBD document. You can click on every blue link in the SCRIBD document to see more details about a particular event.
Here’s a photo of a map showing every event in the country, courtesy of The Women’s March.
Women\’s MarchNational Student Walkout: Every event
If a students’ school isn’t allowing them to participate, the Women’s March is encouraging them to wear orange and tweet #ENOUGH and #NATIONALSCHOOLWALKOUT. What exactly will students be doing during those 17 minutes? That’s been a topic of discussion on several forums. Some students noted that their schools are so big, it will take a chunk of those 17 minutes just to get everyone outside. Some have suggested starting letters to local representatives during those 17 minutes, or encouraging anyone who is 18 to vote. They’ve also suggested reminding people that the next event is going to be nationwide rallies on March 24.
Other suggestions are to tweet the hashtags #Enough and #NationalSchoolWalkout, and share photos of students who are participating in the walkout, in order to help spread the word about what is happening. At some schools, members of the faculty will address students during the walkout. Others will read poems out loud. Others who are advocating to maintain silence the entire time have suggested giving students something to quietly read or ponder during those 17 minutes. Others have suggested simply reading aloud the names of each person killed and standing quietly, one name for each minute.
There are at least two more events happening after the March 14 event. On March 24, a national March for Our Lives event is happening, with the major march occurring in DC at 10 a.m. and sister marches taking place around the country on the same day. On April 20, another student walkout is being planned by The Network for Public Education. It’s being called the “National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools.” The event takes place on the anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings. Teachers, staff, and students are being encouraged to take part in protests in and around their schools.
Is your school participating? Let us know in the comments below.