Kempsville’s View on Gun Violence and Student Walkouts
March 7, 2018
On February 14, 2018, a school shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Since then, many of the student survivors have opposed gun violence and supported gun restrictions.
This debate has surpassed Florida and made it into national news and discussion, and school walkouts have been staged in memoriam and to protest gun violence.
The students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High are using their voices to petition for change, and they have inspired students nationally to take a stand and voice their opinions on the topic. The students of Kempsville High School are no exception.
“I read a lot about it when it first happened; it affected me a lot. I’d never really been exposed to gun violence at all, and I was reading and crying… it was just too much,” said Ndeye Sall, a junior who is supportive of gun restrictions.
“I see so many grown people trying to, you know, suffocate them [the students] and put them down, and what they’re saying down. And I think they should rise up and do what they’re doing,” Sall said.
Sall also supports the protests, saying that she doesn’t think students should be punished for participating in walkouts. “I want to participate in a walkout. I think everyone should do it – if they believe in it.”
Not all students think the same. Cory Black, a senior, doesn’t agree with the walkouts.
“I agree maybe they should raise the [gun purchasing] age to 21, but I don’t agree students should be missing out on school,” Black said.
Students who choose to participate in school walkouts need to do it in an organized fashion, says Assistant Principal Dr. Donna Elliott.
“The students have to have a plan, [it] has to be orderly, the cause has to be focus-drawn…We don’t discourage it but we don’t encourage it,” Dr. Elliott said. “The absence is an unexcused absence. But students have the right to do this; in an orderly manner.”
A letter from Virginia Beach Public Schools sent to student families on March 5th said that “…school student division staff will neither encourage nor discourage students from exercising their right to participate in any peaceful school walkout.”
The school district is not planning on persecuting any students who choose to participate in walkouts for anything other than the loss of educational time.