By Ethan Lee
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
On Wednesday, March 14, over 200 Needham High School students participated in a 17-minute walkout aiming to honor the 17 victims of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month. The walkout, part of a national student walkout for stricter gun regulations, took place at 10:00 a.m., with students gathering by the high school’s main entrance. For each minute of the walkout, the name and description of one of the 17 victims of the Parkland, Florida shooting was read, followed by a moment of silence. Candles bearing each of the victims’ names were also displayed.
Katherine Shannon, one of the 15 student organizers of the NHS walkout, explained that “the walkout here at Needham High was geared more towards remembrance of the Parkland victims and solidarity with Stoneman Douglas … Our afterschool political advocacy fair, where we had the League of Women Voters helping to register people to vote, as well as contact info for very various state and federal leaders, was geared more towards political action.”
Students attended the walkout for various reasons, but many were unified by the intention of honoring the victims at Stoneman Douglas High. Angelo Zymaris, a junior at the high school, explained, “I attended the walkout because I felt that remembering the fallen in the Florida shooting was more important than academics, especially because of the lack of gun control in America.”
Needham High School’s participation in the national school walkout puts it among the numerous other schools across the country calling for stricter gun control. Many students hope the walkout will bring about change that can prevent school shootings like that in Parkland from occurring again. Zymaris sees the walkout as crucial to future action across the nation regarding school safety: “The walkout is an important step in telling America that this is a problem, that students won’t go about their day knowing they could have fallen victim to a shooting.”
