The 46 students sat in a circle in the high school cafeteria Saturday morning with the names of the 17 Parkland victims taped to themselves.
For Jayson Badal and 45 other Pennridge High School students, calling for stronger gun laws, other student safety measures and honoring the 17 victims of the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting didn’t end with Wednesday’s national walkout.
The students used their Saturday morning detention — the district’s punishment for walking out of school Wednesday without permission — to continue protesting and honoring the 17 students and staffers killed Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Before the students went inside the school at 7:55 a.m. Saturday to serve the detention, they carried signs with messages like “enough is enough” and enjoyed doughnuts furnished by supportive parents, Jayson said. The parents also had pizza for the students when they got out of detention.
The students spent the 125-minute detention sitting in a circle with arms locked, he said. There were flowers in the middle of the circle in recognition of the victims, and each Pennridge student taped a list of the victims to themselves.
The entire two hours was spent in silence, except when student Anna Sophie Tinneny spent the final 17 minutes reading the names of the Parkland victims, Jayson said. Students also made a 19-second video of the sit-in detention and shared it on their Twitter account, @NeverAgainPenn. The tweet was liked more than 96,000 times and retweeted more than 30,000 times by Monday afternoon.
He added that the remainder of the 225 students who walked out will serve their detentions on Saturday mornings over the next few weeks.
“We want to honor the victims but also bring about change, that’s the whole point,” said Jayson, a senior. “We thought the way we did this Saturday was impactful.”
He said it was unfortunate school district administrators and school board members decided to punish those who walked out. Many other high schools in Bucks County either allowed students to walk out under supervision and various safety precautions, or, like Pennridge, held indoor ceremonies to honor the Parkland victims.
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Also read: “Council Rock School Board - After Hearing from Angry # StandWithTheStudents Parents - Waived Disciplinary Action Against Students Who Walked Out of the Building”.