Shelley High School participates in National School Walkout day

Students from Shelley High School participated in the National School Walkout and were encouraged to meet new people while doing so.

“Get to know kids in the school who you don’t know, use it as a double purpose,” Eric Lords, Shelley High School Principal said. “To support the Florida shooting, but also to support our kids here at our schools.”

Students and faculty were able to introduce themselves to new people and spark up conversations to reflect on the Parkland shooting.

“A lot of individuals I talked to, we talked more about gun control obviously,” Gage Duffin, a senior at Shelley High School, said. “It was a lot of of differing opinions and everyone was respectful of each other and no one was calling each other names or saying that their opinion was wrong.”

Students, like Duffin, use this travesty to help spread change starting within his own school. He started a petition to take action with the Shelley School District 60 board, to improve security policies at school.

“For example this door is unlocked right, this is the office door,” Duffin explained. “Unfortunately, every single door around the school is unlocked at every single hour of the day.”

Whatever the students did talk about with each other, administration just hopes they continue reaching out to others.

“We can help, and our students can help kids who may be struggling,” Lords said. “That they don’t think they have friends, they’re not apart of a clique or a group and we can include them into it.”

Duffin will be addressing the Shelley School District 60 board tomorrow night at 6 p.m. He currently has 270 students and 4 faculty members who have signed the petition.