Ingraham Students Standing up Against Gun Violence

On November 8th, 2022, there was a shooting at Ingraham High School. A fight had broken out in a bathroom between two boys: a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old senior. The younger pulled out a gun and shot the other multiple times. The victim later died.

After this incident, some students at Ingraham decided that students should not have to come to school everyday in fear of another school shooting. These kids wanted change, so they walked out of their classes to go to City Hall to pressure the school district to give them more mental health counselors. Dewar, a girl who was in the building at the time of the shooting, explained in an interview with KUOW, “Prior to the shooting, we only had one mental health counselor for our one thousand four hundred students, which is just unacceptable. There are a large population of students at Ingram who cannot afford private counseling.”

Their calls were heard. The Seattle City Council granted them an additional $4 million to support Seattle schools with more counselors. However, Ingraham students are still calling for a requirement that students learn about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) in order to graduate. DBT helps kids learn to handle their emotions and mental health so as to not resort to violence. 

KING5 news station interviewed two seniors from Ingraham High School, Katie Strausz-Clark and Sofie Blazejova. Katie and Sofie are leaders of “Ingraham for Gun Safety,” just like Dewar. During the school shooting, Sofie said she took out her phone and wrote to family and friends, “I love you … I might die.” Just like Dewar, Sofie and Katie found that what happened was unjust. They demanded there be school security officers that go through anti-racism and de-escalation training to further the safety of their students. They also called for better safe storage laws for guns so that they don’t go into the wrong hands. These kids want change. They don’t want to be the next to die in the next school shooting. Until they get their needs for safer schools and better mental health support, they will continue to protest relentlessly for change.