‘Empowering to be here.’ State College students join nationwide walkout to protest gun violence

At noon on Wednesday, nearly 150 students streamed out of State College Area High School to protest gun violence as part of a national walkout campaign.

Carrying megaphones, homemade signs and backpacks, students gathered to make speeches, call for action and read out the names of 13 schools that have experienced gun violence in 2023, including a North Philadelphia school. Organizers including freshman Sarah Ocampo passed out cards with the contact information for Pennsylvania senators John Fetterman and Bob Casey, urging students to call during the protest and demand stricter gun laws.

Seventy four people have been injured or killed by guns in U.S. schools in 2023 alone, according to NPR. School shootings have been on the rise over the past years, with 46 shootings recorded in 2022, contributing to the 377 school shootings recorded since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado.

Ocampo, founder of the Student Youth Committee, said she received overwhelming support from her classmates while planning the event, along with other State High students from the Centre County For Change committee.

“I know it probably wasn’t an easy decision, but we really do applaud you guys for being out here and showing support and choosing to stand out here for the victims of gun violence,” Ocampo told the crowd of students who had skipped out on their lunch or class periods to attend the walkout.

The entirely student-led and organized protest continued for an hour, with students doing a lap around the State High building before dispersing and heading back to classes.

Principal Laura Tobias said she supported the students’ right to protest but would defer to the code of conduct if students were marked as tardy or cutting class — meaning students could face a two-hour detention if they skipped a class to attend the event. Police officers were also on scene, blocking parking entrances and stationed outside the school, although Tobias could not say how many officers the district had called in to help ensure student safety for the protest.

“We want you to have that voice,” Tobias said. “We understand civil disobedience. We understand what their goal and mission was here today. And so for me, it’s more about safety, security and keeping them safe.”

Tobias said there are other ways for student to enact local or national change, including working with the administration to figure out ways to lobby local officials. The administration has worked with student-led groups in the past for similar walkouts.

“In their minds, they’re doing the right thing to protect themselves in their school,” Tobias said. “I have to support that because I think everyone in the building believes it too.”

Students read aloud the names of the Nashville Covenant School victims and shared their fears over school safety and the trauma caused by lockdowns, including the phony shooting threat against Bellefonte Area High School that put several local districts into lockdown last week. Senior Nat Pearson said the problem of school safety goes far beyond any safety measures the SCASD administration could put in place.

“I know that I could feel less safe, like I know my teachers care about me, I know that we have a good school,” Pearson said. “We have plans in place but it’s terrifying knowing that we had to build these plans.”

Junior Lily Frank encouraged students to lobby local representatives to support increased gun control policies on both state and congressional levels. Frank, who worked last year on a letter with information about secure firearm storage to all SCASD families, said although things can be done on a local level, the issue surrounding gun violence requires widespread, systematic change.

“We have a responsibility to invest in mental health and advocate for education on secure gun storage and safety,” Frank said. “However, that is a Band-Aid solution. In the end, it does require government accountability on a state and national scale.”

Although walkouts and protests like Wednesday’s can help give students hope for change, that feeling doesn’t last, Pearson said.

“It’s very empowering to be here and know that you have so many people who believe the same thing,” Pearson said. “And then immediately I’ll go back to my class and I’ll sit there and go, ‘Oh, one time we had a lockdown in here … we were just sitting in the closet in the room and I was like, I could never see my parents again.’”

This story was originally published April 5, 2023 at 3:58 PM.