Lena Stehle is a senior at LaGuardia High School in NYC

Back in May of last school year, some of my peers at Laguardia High School in New York City and I organized a walkout against the war in Gaza. Trump has now won the election, and despite him posing as the anti-war candidate, he will continue to full-throatedly support the Israeli military’s genocidal onslaught. As students, we have a role pushing to renew and strengthen the anti-war movement. We should call for more walkouts and other forms of protest, and link up with workers who can use their power to go on strike. These protests should be coordinated on a national and even international scale to maximize impact. We need to continue to build walkouts, protests, and strikes to fight the far right and Trumpism, for a new party for working people, and ultimately for a socialist world!

1. Build a Team

Organizing always starts with political conversations and planning. It wasn’t clear at first whether students felt emboldened enough to take action against the attacks on Gaza. Through conversations with peers, explaining our demands and aims, we found some people who wanted to get involved. Socialist Alternative planned and hosted a meeting open to all students to discuss the antiwar movement and how to build it. Our objective for this was to gauge the popularity of an antiwar walkout and see how students wanted to participate in it. 

A meeting is always a great first step in planning a walkout. Giving students the chance to get their opinions out and come to a general consensus can clarify the goals and what we’re all fighting for. It also provides a space outside of school where people might feel more comfortable expressing opinions that might not be as popular in the school. It can also help you meet people willing to play a role in organizing and building. The people who came to our public meeting were the start of the team that would organize the walkout, hand out flyers, and manage our social media. 

2.  Don’t Be Afraid to Work Around the Rules 

Organizing at a school, where administration is often extremely weary of any kind of disruption of the status quo, isn’t always straightforward. But, students have the right to protest and not be punished for it. At my school, we started with just trying to put up flyers. However, even after multiple edits, our flyers were rejected by the school administration on the grounds that it was making some students “uncomfortable”. To work around this, we walked around the cafeteria with clipboards during our lunch periods, and handed out flyers individually to try to find people who would be interested in a meeting to discuss organizing a walkout.

3. Get the Word Out

To build for a successful walkout we wanted to involve as many people as possible. Along with flyering and clipboarding, another useful tool is social media. With a “Students For Palestine” Instagram account that we made, we were able to promote the walkout, and made more people aware through resharing. Sometimes, depending on the school, you can reach out to teachers who are friendly to the cause and ask them to make an announcement about the walkout in class or otherwise show support. At Laguardia, the administration tried to warn people to not go to the walkout through a mass email. Instead they accidentally spread the word to the whole school that there was even a walkout happening!

4. Walkout

Finally, walking out can be the most stressful part of the process. But it’s important that students recognize that we always have strength in numbers, which is something to highlight when trying to convince your peers who might be apprehensive to participate. A security guard can target a student who’s on their own, but it’s more difficult to do that with a large group. Remember that students and community activists usually can’t convene on school property, so be sure to have a meeting place across the street or far enough away.

We had dozens of students participate in our walkout, and many more who supported what we were doing! We started chants and handed out signs around our demands for a ceasefire and more. Socialist Alternative was able to help in providing a bullhorn, which was essential. Our walkout culminated in a short march and a rally with prepared speeches about how funding for war was taking away funds for public education. We also had space for other students to come up and share their thoughts, such as a student who spoke about how he was against the war not in spite of being Jewish, but because of the Jewish belief that every life has value and must be protected. 

If you want to do a walkout at your school, reach out to Socialist Alternative in your area today!