Lessons Learned From National Walkout Day
School officials explain their approach to National Walkout Day and give some advice for future student protests.
National Walkout Day Arrives
LPS had a significant number of students walkout on March 14, although the majority of students in the district stayed inside their classrooms. Students supporting both gun control and gun rights participated without incident.
Both LPS and Adams Five Star assembled their district-level emergency management teams while school officials and added security personnel served in a supervisory role to support student safety.
Both districts also leveraged relationships with local law enforcement agencies and used school resource officers who regularly staff their high schools to help ensure safety.
At LAUSD, a team including the district’s emergency operations center, the LAUSD Police Department and on-site student relations personnel is responsible for responding to student walkouts.
LPS allowed immediate family members to join their children on campus, checking all adults and using sign in sheets to enforce the policy. Members of the media were directed to set up their equipment and film off campus.
Most high school students at Adams Five Star stayed on campus during the protests, although a group at one school walked to the overpass of a nearby highway. Wilderman praised the students for staying safe during what could have been a dangerous situation.
“The kids did a really good job of policing themselves,” Wilderman says. “They had student leaders wearing vests, using radios and making sure students stayed on the sidewalk. So even though kids left the campus they did a good job making sure things stayed safe.”
Guy Grace, the director of security and emergency preparedness at LPS, was also happy with his student’s conduct during the protests.
“I spoke with some students who stayed in the middle watching both [gun control and gun rights] groups who said they were not ready to join either side until they learned more,” Grace says. “Overall I feel it was pretty darn good. It was great to see students on all sides of the issues doing their part [to be respectful and safe].”
Wilderman even used the event as an opportunity to hone his team’s emergency response and force constructive thinking.
“While we were in our incident command post, I put all of our people in a hypothetical situation,” Wilderman explains. “I walked into a room and said, ‘Okay, hypothetically, we just had a shooting, what are we going to do?’ I gave people a few seconds to stop and think and then we wrote out our response on the whiteboard. Sometimes the hardest thing is just getting all the players together.”
Advice for Future Student Protests
LAUSD gave the following lessons learned after dealing with the 2006 protests:
- Designate one person to regularly give information to the media on student walkouts to ensure accurate information is getting to the public.
- Designate someone to serve as “youth relations personnel” who is familiar with the schools, has relationships with local businesses and understands the local community and culture.
- Limit potential flashpoints that could increase student excitement and cause additional students to join the protests.
- De-emphasize the rebellious nature of students’ actions by acknowledging that protesting is within their constitutional right to freedom of speech.
- Do not forcibly prevent students from leaving the school.
- Designate school personnel to accompany the students on their walkout route.
- Ensure on-site personnel have all necessary communication devices (e.g., radios, cell phones), emergency packs/supplies as well as access to necessary support, such as the nurse’s office, EOC and first responders.
- Ensure students are returned to school safely following the walkout event.
Wilderman doesn’t think school officials should have to start from scratch when developing their emergency response plans and gathering resources.
“Try to tap into a bigger agency or bigger school district that has resources and is willing to help you,” Wilderman says. “We support our charter schools in the district, and I’m quick to share our plans because I don’t think people should reinvent the wheel when it comes to school safety.”
Ultimately Wilderman believes student protests are like any other incident at school from an emergency preparedness standpoint.
Still, that doesn’t make handling protests any easier. Wilderman, who has 12 years of law enforcement experience, commends everyone who works in the school security industry.
“There are amazing safety and security people in the world,” Wilderman says. “Some of them do it for a living, but a lot of us do this job because we want to keep kids safe and we want to keep people safe.”
At thousands of schools across the country, National Walkout Day was a safe and coordinated event. Campus Safety recognizes the men and women who put in the hours to make that happen. Congratulations and keep up the good work!
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This is completely ridiculous. One of these has just recently done
(Regardless of who organized it.)
I’ll agree with background checks being more thorough. However repealing the 2nd amendment will not happens.Why,easy it’s OUR RIGHT. a right given not so you could hunt,but so we the people could stand against tyranny an any enemies foreign and domestic. As for “defeating the NRA”, not going to happen. Honestly I’d like to see one of these kids hold their march on a day where their not missing school (which is closer to what their doing,not to mention breaking truancy laws.) They want to hold a march ok. Let’s hold it on they day of homecoming or better yet PROM, OH could make it a week long thing. Say the week of spring break. highly don’t that there’d be as many active matching students then. I could be wrong on that,but we’ll never know cause that won’t happen. Even my sixteen year old son “these kids that are doing this to miss school and supporting a march to take away their own rights.” ( smart boy) Instead of supporting these kids missing school how about we(parents,teachers,law enforcement) support keeping their butts in class.