On Tuesday, January 25th a federal judge ruled in favor of reinstating the mask mandate temporarily. The next day between second and third period, around a hundred students walked out of the high school in an organized protest.
While it is unclear who initially organized the protest, it was spread online by Snapchat. While the walkout was quickly organized by the students, there was not much of a plan for what it would entail.
“We just kind of stood out there for a bit,” said one anonymous student.
Most students who participated in the walkout did so to protest the reinstated mask mandate, but this was not the only intent of all the students.
“I just kinda thought it was fun and wanted to get out of health class” sophomore, Stephen Tancredi said. “I thought at first that they would stop people from going out, but nobody got in the way so I just decided to go out as well. The principals were pretty cool about the whole thing, after we came back inside they sat us down to talk about what was going to happen moving forwards, and we banged the tables and cheered.”
While there were students who supported the walkout, some felt otherwise about it.
“It’s just a piece of cloth, and people are walking out of the school to protest it,” sophomore, Declan Gintz said.
“It was stupid and showed a huge lack of empathy,” another anonymous student said. “It was quite frankly ridiculous and a huge overreaction, especially since the mask is for the safety of others.”
When asked for a comment Dr. Moss stressed that “we support student voice, but the mask mandate will continue to be enforced.”