On Thursday, Jan. 18, approximately 120 students at FHC chose to walk out of class in protest against the school board’s decision to remove Black History and Black Literature from the curriculum. The walkout was planned by a small group of students and advocated for by multiple members of the student body.

Senior Sean Latta was one of the students who helped plan and endorse the walkout through social media aswell as a group chat between FHC, FHN, and FHH leaders.

Latta explained the obstacles that came with organizing a walkout for three different schools. 

“There [were] a lot of times where I would check the group chat and miss a few messages, [but] once we talked about it we came to a consensus,” Latta said.

Latta also spoke on why it is important to show the student perspective instead of allowing the board to make every decision for them.

“I thought it was important because the board likes to say they are doing what’s best for the students, so it’s important that the students get to say what’s best for them,” Latta said.” They’re showing the board that what they said about the classes isn’t true.”

Another student who helped prepare for the walkout was senior Noah Layman, who wanted to advocate for students after he heard about the school boards’ decision from Latta.

“The whole reason I was watching the board was because my friend Sean Latta was the student rep,” Layman said. “He was keeping us updated on things and told us the board decided to change the agenda last minute.”

The decision angered Layman, who decided to attend a board meeting at Central Methodist Church on Dec. 18. After attending, Layman, Latta, and a few others began to come up with a plan to voice the students’ opinions, eventually leading to the walkout. At the meeting Layman spoke with the local NAACP head, Zabrina Looney, who granted him and the other students access to a room within the church so they would be able to plan in private.

“The lady who was leading the Central Methodist Church meeting was the head of the St. Charles NAACP, who [because of her position in the department] gave us the space and saftey to come up with our own ideas.” Layman said.

Layman agreed with Latta about the difficulty that came from working with multiple schools as he found it difficult to coordinate the walkout with everyone’s schedules.

“There were some technical issues that we had due to a lot of the planning being done over the phone. Being from different high schools made figuring out schedules and times to talk with each other a little difficult.” Layman said.

Once they had divided the work between everyone, the plan went into motion as flyers and posters were sent out within the schools. While Layman was promoting in person multiple people were posting on social media and sending out information regarding the walkout. As more and more people began to hear about the plan, administrators sent an email to the students.

The email warned the students that they would be reprimanded if they caused a disturbance within the school, alluding to the walkout and its consequences. With this warning multiple students became hesitant to participate as they were unsure of what their punishment would be if they chose to walk out.

Once the day came for the walkout all anyone could do was wait to see just how successful the plan had been. Overall nearly 330 students participated across the district in protest of the board’s decision.

“I was a little worried that not a lot of people would show up or anything,” Layman said, “But whenever I walked out of class and went outside I was very happy and excited to see so many people walking out and caring about the issue.”

The only thing Layman wished had been different was the amount of media attention the walkout had as only a few channels picked up on the issue.

“I’d like the news or any sort of media station to have been there to publicize it and get the word out to more than just the FHSD community,” Layman said.

Even though there wasn’t as much media coverage as he would have liked, Layman and the rest of the group were very happy with how everything turned out. Overall the walkout brought attention to the school board’s decision and brought to light the problems our district faces when it comes to certain issues.