Students walkout to SM city hall

When the clock hit 10 a.m. on April 20th, midway through second period, hundreds of Samo students rose up from their desks; it was go-time. On this 19th anniversary of the Columbine Massacre, the students marched to the Olympic Gate and proceeded to Santa Monica City Hall where they joined hundreds of other students to take part in the National Walkout for gun violence prevention.  Though Samo could not legally support students leaving campus to attend the walkout, students were not barred from leaving campus.   Students who decided to participate in the walkout received the consequence of an unexcused cut. Although the absence cannot be cleared, this did not stop students from walking out. “Of course I was going to walk out. I didn’t really care about what the school had to say, I knew it was important for us students to have our voices heard. We as a student body want change, and the best way to get there is if we partake in it ourselves,” Sammy Breuer (’20) said. Organized by Los Angeles Student Activist Coalition (LASAC), a newly formed group of student activities from Samo, Beverly Hills High School, University High, Archer School for Girls, Venice High School and Crossroads School, the program began with a pep-talk from Santa Monica Mayor Ted Winterer and continued with speeches and performances by representatives from Black Lives Matter, Women’s March and the Pico Youth and Family Center, among others.    “A lot of the LASAC members know activists that work with the Women’s March, Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives, so we reached out to everyone we know to invite them to come speak about their experiences and beliefs,” LASAC member Camille Hannant (’18) said. During the speeches,  LASAC members encouraged attendees, almost entirely school-aged, to register to vote and have their faces painted with orange, the color that has become the national symbol of solidarity in the fight to end gun violence, a fight that has gained momentum, especially among students, since the February 14 mass shooting at Parkland High School in Florida. “This movement is very important to the younger generation as a whole. Voicing our opinion and forcing ourselves to be heard is the first step this country needs to take in order to see some big changes. We can’t just wait around for things to happen, we have to make this happen,” Sophia Rovalto (’19) said. Student organizers from LASAC were pleased to see their plans, a month in the making, finally materialize. The group began when students from University High School reached out to Samo student organizers of the March 14 walkout with a request to join forces. The entire group met for the first time March 23. “We started planning this walkout a few days after the March 14th walkout and quickly became extremely busy with the planning. It felt like we spent years in group chats, fundraising, on calls, and in meetings getting this together,” Hannant said. On Apr. 20, however, there were attendees from many other schools as well, such as Palisades High School, Lincoln Middle School, Wildwood School, John Adams Middle School, Emerson Middle School, New Roads School and Harvard-Westlake School, among others. “For me, it meant that we, as students, could be empowered and express our opinions and be heard and respected,” said John Adams middle-schooler Alex Raphling.