Exactly one month after the Parkland shooting, a majority of the schools in the country walked out of their school at precisely 10 a.m. in the morning. Suffield High School joined along, 135 students signed up to walk out of class at 10 a.m. to walk to the auditorium. After the students piled in, high school senior Madison Kadamus leads the group into seventeen minutes of silence. Every minute, Kadamus would say one name of the seventeen victims of the shooting. The entire auditorium was enveloped in silence, the only noise coming from the occasional squeak of a chair and a cough here and there. Some students had their heads down in respect, others looked up at the ceiling or rested their head on their folded hands. Sure, Suffield High did not like having students walk out of class but they did not penalize those who participated. However, the school did support the walkout, allowing the students to sign up the week before and allowing them to walk into the auditorium instead of leaving the building. A much safer alternative.
Before the 10 a.m. walk to the auditorium, the faculty of SHS also had a reflective moment before school officially began. At seven in the morning, 25-30 teachers left the building for a moment along with a student. They stood by the flagpole and the student read out the names of the victims before they all re-entered the school in solidarity.
The combination of the teachers and students paying their respect to those who lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was a wonderful sight. It shows that Suffield High is a community of people who come together in the face of a tragedy and remember those who lost their lives on that horrific day.