Lake Forest High School Walk Out In Gun Violence Protest

LAKE FOREST, IL — Lake Forest High School administrators will not discipline students who leave the building as part of a national school walkout Wednesday. Students will not be marked with an unexcused absence as long as they return to class following the anti-gun violence demonstration.

Students at thousands of schools plan to quietly walk out of their classrooms at 10 a.m. and file onto the front lawn, locking arms together for 17 minutes of silence in remembrance of the 17 people murdered in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on March 14, the one-month anniversary of the massacre.

The synchronized walkouts have been coordinated by Women's March Youth EMPOWER, which has offered an organizational toolkit to participants. The group had listed more than 2,800 planned events on its website as of Tuesday.

Principal Chala Holland said that LFHS staff will not be able to accommodate any potential student requests to stay inside classrooms because so many students have expressed interest in participating. As a result, students who are not taking part in the demonstration on the law will be sent to the commons and cafeteria.

"With so many students planning to participate, we have a significant task of securing the building and the school's perimeter," she said, in a letter to the school community.

Holland said teachers would take attendance at 9 a.m. and then again at 10:45 a.m. following the walkout.

"Students who choose to engage outside of these parameters will be marked absent," Holland said.

Local law enforcement have been working with administrators to secure the building and its surroundings, according to Holland and Superintendent Michael Simeck.

Simeck emphasized school staff were not organizing or participating in the protests.

"Staff's role in this or any political activity during the school day is solely to provide supervision," he reminded the school community.

"Staff members do not have the right to participate as supporters of the walkout unless they take personal leave from their school duties."

Simeck also told the District 115 board he was not sure what was going to happen during the event, because the administration was not at liberty to ask. He said the district has been following the advice of attorneys to handle a sensitive situation appropriately.

"Our counsel has urged us to think about the degree to which a walkout would be disruptive, but also the degree to which trying to regulate speech, as it is known in legal circles, is then potentially more disruptive," the superintendent said.

Simeck said administrators did not want to risk disrupting the relationship between staff and students by asking them to block the walkout from taking place.

On Feb. 22, a Lake Forest High School junior helping to organize the demonstration described the walkout as a "chance to take a stand," and suggested locking arms in front of the school a silent show of unity.

"We may not have all have the same views on gun control laws, but we can all choose to honor the lives of these victims," she wrote.

In addition to the silent protest, a group of students marched to City Hall to vote for the first time. (Check out a video above.)

The campus was closed to visitors between 9:15 and about 10:30 a.m. before traffic resumed entering and exiting the school lot.