Students, educators, and activists countywide joined a national walkout Wednesday morning commemorating the one-month anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, for which a 19-year-old gunman has been charged with killing 14 students and three staffers.
“This is youth-led and student-based,” said Isabel Huerta, a junior who helped organize a walkout at San Marcos High School. “This is students leaving campus and demanding change and protesting Congress’s inaction in response to gun violence.” At 10 a.m., San Marcos students gathered in the quad to listen to speakers before setting out on a two-mile march along Hollister Avenue to La Cumbre Plaza. Downtown, Santa Barbara High School students (pictured) marched to the Sunken Gardens as Dos Pueblos High School students joined ralliers from UCSB and SBCC at Girsh Park.
