It was a cold chilly Friday. October 28th, 2022. 3rd period had just finished and the bell rang. During passing and 4th period, 10 to 15 students gathered their stuff and walked out of the building.  Just the night before a photo began to circle around Instagram asking students to participate in a walk out during 5th period, being everyone’s lunch period, not only asking them to walk out but informing the students that news are scheduled to be present. Later that week, Oct 27, a petition was floated stating some of the apparent complaints. 

After talking to one student and one member of staff, and one member of admin, feelings about the walkout are mixed, however, there was general discontent with the current administration for various reasons, that the admin says are addressing. 

After interviewing Shadaly Naranjo, a Senior lieutenant colonel at MLA, her stance seems to be in support of the cause and its subsequent walk out if approached in a healthy and civil way. Shadaly believes that a change is needed, ”I think the current administration does have a lot to work on.¨ By viewing the petition and the comments therein, Shadaly’s opinions are shared by others in the MLA community. However, Shadaly does think that the way the walkouts are being done is not effective and will only make it harder for students to protest in the future. ¨It was upsetting because in future references if students want to actually fight for an actual cause, I feel like they’re not going to be heard.¨

Ms. Zoldan, an art teacher at Marine Leadership Academy, teaches every grade and talks to many different students. Although Ms. Zoldan didn’t have a big role in the strike she still very much experienced the events. Ms. Zoldan was not in support of the strike. Although she didn’t specifically say that she wasn’t in support, she didn’t know what the strike was about and said that students were just using it as an excuse, “Is there actually a strike or are there a bunch of students… walking out…to ditch?” However, after being asked about her opinion on students speaking up for themselves she said she supported it, “I’m 100% for it”.

Ms. Gangloo is the assistant principal at Marine Leadership Academy. As part of the admin, we wanted to get her thoughts on this situation. After interviewing her, we found she had feelings similar to Ms. Zoldan.  Gangaloo was generally in support of the idea of peaceful protest but didn’t believe all students who participated knew what they were protesting for. She commented, “My question would be if the students really understood what the strike was about.” Ms Gangaloo summarized her understanding of the students’ perspectives on the cause for the walkouts as, ¨People feeling that certain administration shouldn’t be here.¨Ms. Gangaloo and the current administration claim they are working hard to address these issues. ¨The biggest thing is student’s voice, creating a high school committee, it’s really just a matter of more communication. We are working hard on having more conversations with them [students], we made a survey to communicate with them. We are trying to improve.¨

The student voice committee Ms. Gangaloo is referring to meets every Monday in Mr. Eagle’s room during 5th period lunch for high school students and is open to all.