Teachable Moments: LBUSD Students Hold Peaceful On-Campus Demonstrations One Month After Florida School Mass Shooting

' Teachable Moments: LBUSD Students Hold Peaceful On-Campus Demonstrations One Month After Florida School Mass Shooting

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(March 14, 2018) -- A sizable number of Long Beach Unified School district students chose to take part in peaceful but passionate on-campus demonstrations at their campuses today (March 14) coinciding with the one month anniversary of the Parkland, Florida school mass-shooting. Photo gallery below.

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Students at ELB's Millikan High gave LBREPORT.com differing crowd estimates; one student estimated 800-1,000 particpated; another said perhaps 2,000. Participating students exited their classes at 10:00 a.m., lined the school's athletic track, linked arms and heard the names of each of the 17 Florida school victims (students, teachers, and coaches) read aloud, one per minute.

Millikan High School panoramic shot by Max Pearl. Click to enlarge.

Millikan High School

A student delivered a speech calling for change, saying [paraphrase] we can't let this happen again. Another student read a poem. Students returned to their classes about 10:40 a.m.

LB Mayor Robert Garcia Tweeted photos of himself at ELB's Marshall Middle School, indicating he'd been invited by a Marshall middle school student.

Mayor Garcia @ Marshall Middle School

Demonstrations with various formats occurred on multiple other LBUSD campuses. LBUSD's website posted the following photos:

LB Poly High

LB Wilson High

LB Jordan High

LB Jordan High
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Following the events, LBUSD Superintendent Chris Steinhauser issued the following statement:

Today our students made their voices heard on the important issue of gun violence in our nation’s schools. Our school staff and student leaders worked hard to provide on-campus activities allowing our students to speak their minds in a safe and supportive environment.
Many of our schools, especially at the middle and high school level, held moments of silence for gun violence victims. Students delivered speeches and provided statistics on gun violence nationally. Others registered to vote. Many wrote letters to Congress, while others sent notes of support to students in Parkland.
Last week our Board of Education unanimously adopted a resolution calling for greater efforts nationally and statewide to prevent gun violence. As part of that resolution, our school board promised to listen to students who are speaking out on this issue, and to amplify their voices. Today, we did that.
We have more than 23,000 high school students. The result of our on-campus efforts is that we had no organized off-campus demonstrations by our students this morning, and more than 98 percent of high school students chose to remain on campus. Districtwide, roughly 375 high school students left campus and dispersed peacefully. The remainder of our 74,000 students stayed in school.
We encourage you to check our home page at lbschools.net in the coming hours and days for photos and video of today’s events.
For many of our students, today was an example of living history. We thank everyone who helped to keep our students safe, providing them a learning experience that they will long remember.

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