Students from Bainbridge and Eagle Harbor high schools will walk out of class for a 17-minute showing of solidarity this week, joining youths around the country in a unified call for improved campus safety in response to regular mass shootings at educational institutions, and a collective frustration with the lack of progress being made by lawmakers to address the issue.

Bainbridge has not been spared from potentially disastrous scenarios, students said.

“BHS has been affected by threats of a school shooting twice in the past few years,” said Grace Bautista, a Class of 2017 grad and a co-organizer of the walkout.

“The experience was traumatic for many of us,” she said. “I have spoken to several friends who were present for both active shooter threats about their lives after these incidents and how they affected us, and we all agree that although we did not suffer as so many schools have, we need to talk about these instances within our community.”

The walkout will take place at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 14 — the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting that left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Two of the three recent island school lockdowns were because of false reports of a gun on campus.

The first, in 2016, resulted in the arrest of a BHS security guard, who made a phony call about a gun sighting as a prank.

The second, in late 2017, also a prank call, was made by two girls, 9- and 10-years-old, both students at Captain Charles Wilkes Elementary.

The third lockdown, late last month, was called after a man entered BHS, reportedly followed a female student into a restroom to spy on her, then assaulted two other teenage girls, one on-campus and another nearby.

In the wake of that lockdown, additional security measures were put in place at BHS, including reducing the number of unlocked entry points to buildings, according to school staff.

Students, however, remain doubtful.

The experience of a lockdown, walkout organizers said, can be emotionally and psychologically scarring, irrespective of the veracity or nature of the inciting incident.

“I have personally experienced — and continue to experience — symptoms of PTSD and anxiety after just one lockdown,” said Bautista, now a freshman at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

“So, right now, it is difficult to imagine what the students of Stoneman Douglas High might be going through. But, I can say this: Young, politically engaged students like those from MSD are speaking out to prevent tragedies like this from ever occurring again, and students from BHS … want to do the same.”

A national conversation

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was the site of one of the world’s deadliest school massacres. In the wake of the shooting, students from that school, and others, have become central figures in the national conversation about school violence and campus security, calling on many elected officials to enact stricter gun control measures.

Wednesday’s walkout at BHS, student organizers said, is more a showing of solidarity than a political call-to-action — this time, at least.

“For this one, it’s definitely more a showing of solidarity, but I think overall there’s definitely an agreement that there needs to be some kind of change within the school and within the state and the country as a whole,” said BHS senior Finn Tait, 18. “Something needs to change.”

“It’s not just about Bainbridge,” agreed fellow senior Lauren Wallach, 17.

“As teenagers, as part of the greater community of teenagers and students from across the nation, it’s really important that any opportunity that we get to stand up and say something about something that affects us and something we believe in. I think that’s really important,” she said.

“This walkout, we’re wanting to focus really on sympathy with the victims and showing solidarity with other students at other schools because, really, it could be any of us next,” Tait added.

About 200 students are expected to participate in the walkout. The school’s administration, student organizers said, have been thus far supportive of the movement.

“There’s no sort of punishment for us, especially since it’s only 17 minutes long; that’s the same time as our breaks,” Wallach said. “We got really, really lucky with them. We’re really grateful.”

That said, student organizers are pushing to be more involved in campus security decisions, in addition to encouraging more wide-ranging reforms.

“We’re really trying to make the walkout not a political statement or issue, just something about our safety in schools,” Wallach said.

“I feel like there’s a big gap right now between the choices that are made by the staff and faculty and the students’ understanding of those choices,” agreed Tait. “It’s true we’re younger, but we’re not unreasonable. If people explain to us the reasoning behind things and give us good opportunities to involve ourselves in that, we’ll take it.

“The threats that we’ve had so far haven’t been real in that no one died, but, for us, for that half hour, it was very real,” Tait added. “We were waiting for the first shots, waiting to figure out what was going to happen; we were texting people, saying goodbye.”

We’re not ‘pawns’

Some critics elsewhere, and here on Bainbridge as well, have accused student activists of being proxies of anti-gun interests, a claim which exasperates Wallach and Tait.

“Do you not remember what it was like to be 17 and to feel passionate about something?” Wallach laughed. “Or, to be concerned about something in our life and want to change things? Yeah, I’m 17, but also, I’m 17. I have a voice. I have a brain. I understand things.”

A recent post on the Bainbridge Islander Facebook group claiming BHS students were “pawns in the gun control scheme,” was “offensive,” Tait said.

“You might even say we’re in a unique position to have eloquent discussions with other people because that’s what we’re taught to do in school,” Tait said. “We’re taught to be respectful and honorable to other people in discussion in class and so in away, a lot of people are like, ‘How are these kids so eloquent in their discussion?’ I think that’s partially because that’s what we’re taught to do in class. I don’t know if that prepares you for the real world very well, but it certainly prepares you for living in this time of political unrest when you do have to have a position on pretty much everything.”

Others, including local citizens and parents, have reportedly expressed a desire to participate in the March 14 gathering, though Wallach and Tait said this event was intended to be student-only.

Additional demonstrations and a larger, public gathering in Seattle planned for next month were the more appropriate time for those so inclined to show support, they said.

Time for change

Ultimately, the seniors said nearly every student they’d spoken with at BHS agreed that the time is now for instituting changes, especially at BHS, precisely because there are not been a true tragedy here.

“There’s definitely a security issue at the school and all over the state there’s an issue with gun control and the ease with which you can get firearms,” Tait said.

Wallach agreed, “I should be able to go to school in the morning and not worry about surviving the day.”