The nationwide walkout tied to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting made headlines this week, but LZHS’ event caused a buzz of another kind.

Even before the event on March 14, student groups began discussing signs, a possible counter event, and whether or not the event was tied to the national movement that advocated for gun control.

“I don’t understand why they did not associate this with the national movement. We [did] this at the same time on the same day and it is a part of the national movement, as much as the administration would like to squash that half of it,”  Julia Funk, senior, said. “Going out there and being told to sit down quietly felt very much like an assembly. If the administration had truly thought it had no political connotation, then why wouldn’t have every student walked out just to memorialize the 17 victims?”

Funk and other activists were also not allowed to carry signs during the walkout.

“We started walking out of the school with our signs and they started yelling, ‘Hey, stop!’ and I said [to the others], ‘let’s just push forward. Let’s try to get out of the building. They don’t want it in the building disrupting learning environments.’ Dean Aiello confronted me and told me that ‘if you don’t surrender your sign, you won’t walk at graduation.’ I asked, ‘Why? Why can’t we have our signs?’ and he said, ‘because I said so,’” Funk said.  “Our school always goes on about how we all treat each other with respect here you’re young adults, we’ll treat you like adults. It was just extremely dismissive. Personally, I think they did not want us to have signs because they didn’t want this to have any kind of political connotation, but they should’ve communicated that to us, rather than originally telling us that you can’t have sticks [on the signs]. So then we were like ‘ok, we won’t have sticks.’ They did not communicate that to us, and it would’ve saved a lot of hassle if they had.”

Because the event was not politically motivated, signs were not permitted, according to Abigail Celli, dean of students. Signs would imply a protest, which contradicted the walkout’s purpose to memorialize the victims.

“I know that as administrators, none of us specified that specifically ‘no signs with sticks.’ We did say no signs because we did not want a memorial for the tragic loss of lives to become politicized,” Celli said. “First of all, as a public institution, we cannot host political rallies of any sort. And it was made very clear to the students who were organizing it that this was a nonpolitical event and students were to simply respect the lives that were lost. I can say that I was very disappointed that some of our students decided to exploit those children and teachers who were killed in this tragic event for the promotion of their personal political agenda, so that was very frustrating and sad to me. Overall, I was very proud of how our students were respectful and how much our students care about these kids and the cause, but the exploitation was really disappointing to me.”

Funk argues that her signs were not politically motivated. A video of Funk and other students passing out signs was incorrectly cited as “pro-gun control” on the Bear Facts Student Media Twitter. This false citation has since been corrected.

“We were handing out signs that said ‘Enough is Enough,’ which all the speakers said, so that was part of it, and our other sign said ‘our opinions matter,’ which is just to make the point that young people are taking a stand, that we do have a voice in this issue,” Funk said. “When we were cited as handing out pro-gun control flyers, it did not seem to be accurately portrayed with what we were doing. It sounded divisive, that we were infiltrating the walkout and putting our own message to it, [but] the national movement is about gun control.”

Though organizers of the walkout stated on the Facebook event that the LZHS walkout was nonpolitical, the original name of the event indicated a politically motivated purpose, according to Yianni Manousaridis, senior.

“Personally, I don’t like the way [the walkout] was [run],” Manousaridis said. “It was originally named the ‘gun legislation walk,’ and then it was [said to be] for the victims. If it’s going to be about [the victims], then don’t try to mask it with something else and add [politics] back in later. Be upfront with it. If you’re going to do something, do it. [Be] 100% with it.”

While the walkout organizers shared their event on Facebook, Manousaridis also shared his counterevent, titled the ‘NRA Sit-in.’

“It was for two things. One, overall, to honor the victims, and [two] to keep our second amendment right,” Manousaridis said. “I didn’t want to do any political twists, so I was more upright with [my opinion than the organizers of the walkout were].”

However, the counter event did not occur because he was unable to attend a required meeting with administration to approve the event beforehand, according to Manousaridis.

The school-sanctioned walkout did have administrative approval, according to Celli. With approval, students were allowed to hold their memorial and promote school safety, according to Michaela Towne, Spanish teacher.

“From my point of view, it’s not really political,” Towne said. “I’m a teacher. I have students. I have kids of my own, and for me, it’s not as much of a political issue as just wanting people to know that we want our kids to be safe, not just when they go to school, but when they go to the movies, or when they go to the park, things like that.”

Overall, the walkout’s purpose was fulfilled as the organizers intended, according to Rajen Modi, senior and political science club president.

“I think that the walkout [did] show awareness and support, which I think [was] the most important thing that it need[ed] to do,” Modi said. “I think that saying that young people can’t make a difference is garbage, honestly. If somebody is informed on a topic, [and] if you do your research, then you have a right to speak out.”