SIDNEY — A set of assemblies at Sidney High School, Wednesday, March 14, recognized The National School Walkout, which took place at 10 a.m. in each time zone across the country, for 17 minutes.
The National Walkout was organized by students worldwide as a way to protest gun violence and to mark one month since the mass shooting at a school in Parkland, Florida.
Sidney High School Principal Doug Zimmer worked with the student council to come up with activities in lieu of a walkout to engage students while memorializing the lives lost and bringing attention to the current safety measures in place at Sidney City Schools.
According to Superintendent John Scheu, members of the student council chose two videos, one from ABC News and one from CNN, which were shown in classes at the high school and junior high at 10 a.m., and which focused on the Parkland shooting.
While the majority of students did not participate in the walkout at 10 a.m., Scheu said two junior high students chose to do so and subsequently received detention, which is protocol in accordance with the school handbook’s rule against leaving school grounds.
In the afternoon, there were two assemblies, one for 11th- and 12th-grade students and one for eighth-, ninth- and 10th-grade students. The assemblies were led by Scheu and Shelby County Sheriff John Lenhart.
Both assemblies began with a prayer by the Rev. David Chivington, of Sidney First United Methodist Church.
Chivington opened his segment during the first assembly by thanking the administration and students for the opportunity to be present and to “be reminded that there are some spiritual issues that are behind some of this.”
He began his prayer by speaking about the fear and chaos behind mass shootings.
“There’s no sense to it,” he said. “We are reminded that we do not have control; we never did. We are forced to recognize that we cannot predict what might happen tomorrow … It makes us feel vulnerable; fearful.”
Scheu began his address to the students by thanking them for not walking out at 10 a.m., stating the activities planned for that day were done so in the attempt to be “more productive” than a walkout.
Scheu then said he and Lenhart would be discussing the security measures in place in Sidney City Schools.
“What I would like to start off by saying is that all of our school security measures were much different five years ago before Sandy Hook happened in Newtown, Connecticut,” Scheu said.
He went into brief detail about the specifics of the Newtown shooting, which was carried out by then 20-year-old Adam Lanza. Lanza killed his mother before going to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he fatally shot 20 children and six staff members.
“At that time, Sandy Hook Elementary had the most sophisticated and state-of-the-art hardware, security cameras, buzzer systems, (and) every door was locked,” he said. “They did everything that any other school in the country would have done five years ago.
“Back then, students were not instructed to open up the window and jump out,” he continued. “They were not instructed to put barricades (behind) that locked door, which now, students are instructed to do. The rules have changed significantly since that Sandy Hook massacre.”
Lenhart addressed the student audience by thanking them for “doing the right thing today.” He also thanked the previous and current school boards, as well as Scheu, for having “the initiative” five years ago to put in place the current security measures.
He shared that when he first learned of the Sandy Hook shooting, he was in a training class with other newly-elected sheriffs, as he had just begun his second term as the sheriff of Shelby County. Upon learning of the tragedy, Lenhart said he knew the schools in his jurisdiction were not prepared for such an event.
Lenhart said he promptly contacted Scheu and other county school officials to work on putting new security measures in place.
He also stressed the idea of “home rule” when it comes to making decisions within cities and counties.
“Home rule is your local school board making decisions, your local sheriff making decisions, your local mayor making decisions,” Lenhart said. “We are not dependent on state or federal government making rules for us.
“If we would have had to wait on security measures for the state or federal government to help us, we wouldn’t have anything in place in Sidney schools or all the county schools,” he said.
Specifically, the Sidney City School district has uniformed and armed security officers in each school, as well as an additional school resource officer at the high school and back-up first responders, who are teachers, principals, secretaries, custodians and aides who have gone through intensive voluntary training of how to respond in a crisis situation.
Also, as part of what Scheu called the “layered approach,” loaded handguns are strategically placed throughout the school buildings inside automatic safes, which members of the first responder team can access with a fingerprint.
“We feel we have put as much planning, resources and energy into providing the best protection possible in the unlikely event of an active shooter,” Scheu said.
Scheu opened up the floor to student questions toward the end of the assembly.
One student asked whether or not there are alarms on the safes, to which Scheu responded that the safes are equipped with alarms that will alert “the people that need to be alerted” in the event that the safe is left open for a certain period of time.
Another asked about the response of teachers during a crisis and what we can and cannot expect of them.
“That’s why training is so important,” Lenhart said. He added that it’s important to have as many of the staff trained as possible so that the weight of responsibility for the safety of all does not fall on one single individual.
One student pointed out the lack of control in situations like these and the idea that walking out of school in support of gun legislation allowed students to take back—on a small, symbolic scale—some of that power.
Scheu responded, “If there was that much passion for ending gun violence, do you think walking out at 10 o’clock in the morning is going to stop (it)? And why couldn’t the protests have been after school?”
At that, about five minutes prior to the end of the assembly, several students stood up and walked out.
At Anna High School, a spot was designated within the school building for students who wanted to participate in the walkout, and student council members led activities which paid tribute to the victims of the Parkland shooting.
Information about what may have taken place in other local schools was not available at press time.
