While it made regional news, last Wednesday’s student walkout at Cheney High School caught district administrators completely by surprise.
Superintendent Rob Roettger said administrators were in a discussion at Snowdon Elementary school during their regular “Leadership Council” meeting about the possibility of student walkouts protesting gun-related violence at schools. The planned March 14 and April 20 protests are part of a national campaign by students emanating from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members on Feb. 14.
Roettger said the March 14 date is the one-month anniversary of that attack while April 20 is the 19th anniversary of the attack at Columbine High School in Colorado by two gunmen that killed 12 students and one teacher while injuring 21.
Roettger said the administration “thought we were being proactive” in discussing the upcoming walkouts and how they would collaborate with student leadership on these and future events centering on the issue of school violence. During the meeting, the administrators heard news that a walkout could occur around 10 a.m., so high school administrators left Snowdon and headed back to Cheney.
Later in the morning, Roettger said he was contacted by high school Principal Troy Heuett that flyers had been posted calling for a walkout at noon. According to news reports, CHS students Kyra Gardner and Maura Duffy said they put up flyers announcing the walkout and planned the event.
“Troy and I discussed how to handle (the walkout) and I headed to the high school,” Roettger said. “On the way to the high school, Troy called me to tell me news media stations were onsite.”
At noon, about 100 students gathered outside the high school’s main entrance for an hour before returning to class, with topics ranging from gun control to the causes of violence.
While supportive of students desires to be heard about issues in schools, Roettger said he doesn’t want it to turn into a political debate centered on guns.
“I think as kids bring forward school violence, that’s something we need to talk about,” he said. “Quite frankly, we’re all on the same page when it comes to school violence.”
Roettger, Heuett and others will sit down with student leaders to have a discussion about the appropriate ways to have this discussion as well as the upcoming planned protests in March and April. No suspensions of students who organized and took part in the walkout are planned, Roettger added, with administrators wishing to balance and work with students about how to express their issues, frustrations and concerns over the issue.
“We want to support kids and their abilities to have a good discussion,” Roettger said. “We’ll have a discussion down the road about what this will look like.”
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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