On April 20, Brown County High School senior Grace Jackson stood before about 100 of her peers to ask for a moment of silence for school shooting victims.
For 17 minutes, students gathered in the Larry C. Banks Memorial Gymnasium.
“By gathering here today, we hope to pressure our elected officials to pass legislation regulating the use of firearms, thereby setting the agenda on our terms,” Jackson said.
The district-sanctioned demonstration was about “letting lawmakers know we have a voice,” Jackson said.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]“It’s not about stopping all guns from being sold, or repealing the Second Amendment. It’s about responsible gun ownership, and not allowing assault rifles or military-grade weapons to be so easily bought, in order to keep our schools safe and to protect our learning environment.”
Brown County Schools had allowed these student-led events to take place in the intermediate, junior high and high schools on this second national school walkout day. BCS had been on spring break during the first walkout day in March. April 20 was chosen nationally because it’s the anniversary of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Brown County’s events were peaceful, said Superintendent Laura Hammack. No other demonstrations took place inside or outside the buildings. One police car stood by in the parking lot between the intermediate and high schools, just in case any help was needed.
Students who attended the event at BCHS had differing opinions on gun rights. At least one student attended wearing a National Rifle Association T-shirt, Jackson said.
“There was one girl who stood up and talked about how guns don’t hurt people; it’s humans who hurt people. That’s fine. She had that right. We all clapped for her, just like anyone else who stood up,” Jackson said.
“That was her opinion and it was fine. There was no persecution. Nothing happened. She stated her opinion and it was great. That’s why I think it went so well, because everyone was welcomed to speak. I was glad people were motivated and had the courage to go up and speak.”
About seven students spoke, Jackson said.
“There was one kid who talked about how it was incredible we could all come together, and even students who were there who did not believe in what the purpose was for this, that they could come and be respectful and protest in their own way, silently, just by being there,” Jackson said.
Jackson organized the student walkout, which ultimately became a “walk-in” after Hammack received emotional messages from residents and became concerned about students’ safety if they were to conduct their event outside.
“It has spun to be that this is a Second Amendment issue and that the schools are taking a position. That has really rallied some folks I don’t even know, who have reached out with sincere anger to the point where then I just had to take control of the situation, and with the board’s support,” Hammack said the night before the event.
“As the week has gone by, and as there has been more and more, it’s been every day I wake up with this day in mind, with the priority only being, ‘How can I keep these kids as safe as possible?’”
Comments numbered over 200 on Hammack’s initial letter about the walkout, before the post was taken down from her superintendent Facebook page.
She said that based on messages and social media chatter, the district was concerned about adults showing up to counter-protest; however, no groups had contacted her to say they were going to come, and none did.
Some residents had expressed feelings to Hammack about the event being a disruption to the school day.
She said the district didn’t consider this event to be a “substantial disruption.”
“They (the students) have not been at all aggressive in their stance or tone, or disruptive. It has not met that test. … Our perception is just different on that,” she said.
Jackson thought that social media posts were a deterrent to students participating.
Hammack said one parent also told her that providing only two choices for students — attend the event or stay in class — would put students in an uncomfortable position. For that reason, that parent chose not to send their student to school.
The absence rate at the high school was “compelling” on Friday, Hammack said: of 641 students, only 338 were present by an unofficial count that morning. Some were on a field trip, but they counted as present.
“I honestly really felt for parents coming from this point of view … though the school was coming at it from a perspective of genuine safety and neutrality, that we were perhaps unintentionally making the student make a choice, and they felt that was unfair. And that was, I thought, a fair point of view,” Hammack said. “… That’s where I think this option of not coming to school today was exercised,” which is completely within parents’ rights, she said.
Parents and community members also brought up concerns that this event was taking instructional time out of the school day.
Hammack said the entire event took 20 minutes from the time students left class to when they returned.
ISTEP testing for one subject had been scheduled at the high school, but it was moved to the following week, she said.
Teachers who remained with the students who didn’t wish to participate, inside their normal classrooms, were instructed to treat this like a normal day as much as possible, Hammack said.
Jackson believes the walk-in was an educational experience for students.
“We contributed to the democratic process in some way,” she said.
“Though many people do not seem to think so, we are not ignorant about these issues plaguing our nation. … We are free thinking, informed and intelligent young people, and to say anything otherwise is to denounce this wonderful educational system.”
While Jackson said she doesn’t feel personally unsafe in Brown County schools, “When (the) Parkland (Florida high school shooting) happened, I got deeply emotional about it,” she said.
“That kind of hit me right in the heart because it’s something that could very easily happen to me. That was why I decided to do this, because it had an emotional importance to me. I felt like in order to see some change happen, it has to be everywhere in the country.”
Supreme Court case law and the Constitution afford students the right to demonstrate in public schools, Hammack said. If other students were to ask to put on a similar event in the future, she said she’d look at the situation “on an individualized basis.” Since this was a national event, “I believe that mobilized students a little bit more,” she said.
Jackson said she was pleased with the way the high school event went. About three sections of the lower-level bleachers were filled with students, she said. She also was glad that people with differing opinions spoke.
“I wanted to open up that conversation between everyone,” she said. “To have a successful democracy, you have to hear all sides of the story and not have one person dominate the conversation.”
Towards the end of her speech, Jackson encouraged her classmates who are old enough to vote in the primary and general elections.
“Do some research on which candidates support gun regulation and which don’t. Our choices on the ballot directly influence our future and the future of the government,” she said.
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Because of concerns about students’ safety, the intermediate school, junior high and high schools were closed to visitors, including news media, while the student-led walkout was taking place.
In order to allow The Democrat to still report on this event, Superintendent Laura Hammack offered to have high school Principal Shane Killinger find upper-class students to volunteer for interviews.
The Democrat asked to speak with students who participated in the walkout and students who opted not to about their reasons for making that choice.
Only one student, walkout organizer Grace Jackson, volunteered to be interviewed after the event.
Anyone inside the schools was legally able to share photos, Hammack said. BCHS student newspaper The Talon sent photos from the high school gym. Jackson gave reporters a copy of her speech, and Jackson and Hammack described what happened at the high school.
Public school districts have the right to control who comes and goes from school buildings, said Steve Key, attorney for the Hoosier State Press Association.
Hammack said that the safety concern with regards to news coverage inside the school stemmed from protecting the anonymity of students, who had to choose whether they were going to participate in the event or not. If the event would have taken place outside — which was the original plan — anonymity wouldn’t have been a concern, because students would have been making a choice to be seen by going out to participate.
The intense emotions associated with this issue were what prompted Hammack’s safety concerns. She talked with the student organizers about moving the event inside, and they made the choice to do so, she said.
More than 200 comments were posted on Hammack’s letter about the walkout on her superintendent Facebook page, before the entire post was taken down.
She also reported receiving two angry, direct messages which she considered to be “threatening or vulgar,” but were not directed at students. She did not report them to police because she thought they weren’t criminal in nature, “nothing even close to being anything that would be charged.”
“It was more so the wake-up call of, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I just thought it was going to go in a different direction.”
Six people who weren’t in favor of the walkout talked with her over the phone, she said. She received an estimated 40 to 50 emails from staff, parents and community members who supported the district’s action and 20 to 25 who did not support it — not counting the online comments.
Hammack said she appreciated the chance for “collaborative conversation” and wished there could have been more of it, because she felt like she and the callers understood each other’s perspectives better after talking. “Not everyone is going to have the same point of view, and that’s OK,” she said.
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