Sleepy Hollow High Students Join National Walkout To Protest Gun Violence

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As many as 150 students joined gun violence "walkout" at Sleepy Hollow High School

September 9, 2025

The movement against gun violence in schools was rudely re-awakened on August 27^th with the death by gun of two children and wounding of 21 others at the Annunciation Church School in Minneapolis. Within days, word began to spread via Instagram that students across the country were gearing up to respond. “Gun violence is something that impacts us as students,” said Sleepy Hollow High School junior Dylan Smith.”

When his classmate Jake Saltzman learned through Instagram that “Students Demand Action,” the school-based branch of Every Town for Gun Safety, was calling for a nationwide school “walkout” at noon on September 5^th, he rallied Smith and other concerned friends at Sleepy Hollow High School to join in.

On September 2^nd, students took their proposal to join in the walkout to School Principal Dr. Deborah Brand. Brand gave them “a yellow light,” pending approval by District Superintendent Dr. Ray Sanchez, who approved it the next day—provided no posters were hung on school grounds (so as not to portray the school as a political platform), provided no outside media were invited (so as to keep outside adults off campus) and provided that no cell phones were used to take photos of the event(so as to comply with the new school day cell phone ban. Photos were taken by traditional cameras.).

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Rally speakers from left to right: Dylan Smith, Vera Freeman, Jake Saltzman, and Marisol Staley

The plan was to have students walk out of school right at noon and assemble on the football field. “We thought we would reach 50 kids,” says Smith, an Eagle Scout. We got triple that.” The crowd that gathered on the field at that Friday lunch hour was estimated between 120 and 150. Before heading back to afternoon classes, they head from each of the four organizers: Smith, Vera Freeman, Jake Saltzman and Marisol Staley, whose mother, Effie Phillips-Staley, is vying to be the Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 17^th District, currently held by Republican Mike Lawler.

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