Oakwood and Fairmont High Schools held a joint rally this morning at Fraze Pavillion. The rally was one of hundreds taking place across the country as part of a “National School Walkout” movement. The purpose of the rally was to call attention to school shootings and call for stricter gun laws.
Meigan Karolak is fifteen and a sophomore at Fairmont. She’s one of the co-organizers of the rally.
“It was certainly a process, but the school was very accommodating," she said. "They let us leave without consequences but we worked with the city, we worked with a lot of people who were just helping us.”
Sixteen year old Sophomore, Sammy Caruso, also helped organize the walkout for Oakwood students. In addition to stricter gun laws, he says the rally was a call for continued political action.
“It’s been a main point of our walkout today is we want students to volunteer for campaigns to get involved in the political system and to keep the movement going."
Caruso says there were “a decent amount of students from both schools who did not participate in the walkout and stayed in school, however a handful of students did join the rally, but in protest
Gradon Weimer, a seventeen year old Fairmont student, was one of five students that counter-protested the call for harsher gun laws.
“The Florida Shooting, the kid had a mental health problem," said Weimer. "Nobody did anything and he shot 17 students, and I believe the the problem is not the guns. People who have mental health problems are the problem.”
Today’s “National School Walkout” was a response to that Parkland, Florida school Shooting and was also chosen to commemorate the April 20th, 1999 Columbine High School shooting.
Several local officials, including Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, joined students and faculty for the rally.