Homewood-Flossmoor High School officials braced themselves for the possibility of a large number of students walking out in protest during a passing period at 11:23 a.m. Thursday.
Instead, about 15 students left before noon and went across the street on Kedzie Avenue on a rainy day to join representatives of activist groups to protest safety procedures at the school. They say there were incidents by an unnamed student of alleged sexually assault over the last three years and the school has not done enough to rectify the situation.
Junior Titilayo Anoma said there were at least 100 students who wanted to come out and protest Thursday but said the school locked the students in, which school officials dispute. Lashawn Littrice, who brought the activist groups together for Thursday’s protest and said she has a daughter at the school, said hundreds of students walked out March 16 over this issue.
The school parking lot entrances were blocked to outsiders as were several other parking lots near the school Thursday morning. The CVS Pharmacy across the street from the school was closed and its lots were blocked off by barricades. The entrance to Coyote Run Golf Course across from the school was blocked off as was the entrance to a nearby Homewood-Flossmoor Park District facility and the entrance to the ice arena.
There was also a police presence near the school.
“As soon as the ball rang, I ran outside and they locked all the doors and they locked students inside,” Anoma said. “All morning long, teachers were making passive comments to students, saying, ‘Oh, you’re not going to walk out, right?'”
Jodi Bryant, the school’s director of human resources and public relations, said Thursday there were no locked doors.
“We’re a public building and our doors are all egress, and our students are able to leave out of any of our doors on campus,” she said. “No students were prevented from leaving.”
Bryant also said no students suspended or expelled for participating in the first walkout last week, and none will be suspended or expelled for this one.
Student Trinity Bond said she doesn’t feel safe at the school.
“We feel that we need a buddy system going from class to class. We feel as students who are 17, 18 and 19 that we shouldn’t be looking over our shoulders to see if somebody is going to do something to us. We should not be scared in the hallways.”
Anoma said they reported an alleged assault to the administrators and they didn’t make any moves.
“In my eighth grade year, H-F was on the news for a blackface incident,” she said. “I didn’t think anything else like that would happen like that. I don’t know why I didn’t think so, but here we are.”
She said the students made demands to administrators and they either received no response or “they responded with comical remarks.”
A student shared a recording of an announcement they said was read Thursday morning via the public address system, urging them not to walk out.
“We have been made aware that there may be outside adult groups that will be attempting to enter our campus in order to influence our students and their behavior through misinformation,” according to the recording. “We’re concerned that our students may be pressured into making poor decisions which may result in a severe disruption to our learning environment and cause harm and emotional distress to our students and adults who experience many different types of trauma.”
The announcement said the expectations is that students will attend all classes as scheduled. It said parents and students will receive notification of those expectations and potential disciplinary consequences.
“At this time, the most helpful, productive ways to work with one another is to communicate specific concerns to a trusted adult,” the announcement said, based on the recording. “Please note that our counselors, social workers, dean and administrators are available to listen to those concerns.”
Activist groups who came out to Flossmoor were Make Noise for Change, Justice for Nick, GoodKidsMadCity, Black Lives Matter – Lake County, Black Lives Matter – Will County, Violence Interrupters, the Chicago Activist Coalition for Justice and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Littrice called the event a success despite the low numbers.
“We are getting our message heard and that’s a good thing,” she said. “It’s all about quality, not quantity.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
