Huntley High School students stage walkout asking school do more to prevent sexual harassment

Several Huntley High School students staged a walkout Tuesday to protest how the school handles cases of sexual harassment and called on the school to do more to make students feel safe.

About 50 students protested outside the school’s main entrance during their third period on Tuesday morning. Several students spoke about their experiences with harassment and how they wanted the school to step up and address concerned students.

Senior Adi Anderson organized the protest.

“Others and I don’t want anyone else to feel unsafe in the halls like I do,” Anderson wrote in an email. “Recently my friend group and I were harassed during our lunch period. It was extremely triggering to me and caused multiple panic attacks. It made me feel disgusting and brought back so many traumatic memories.”

School security officials asked the Northwest Herald to leave the event shortly after it began.

Huntley School District 158 spokeswoman Alex LeMoine said the district supports students for speaking out on the issue.

“We also recognize that there is always room for improvement, and we are committed to continuing to find ways in which we can improve these systems of support, foster positive relationships in our buildings and value our students’ voices,” LeMoine said in a statement.

Anderson said girls at the school have recently experienced inappropriate touching and had inappropriate comments addressed to them by male students.

“There were boys who spoke out, admitting that they need to do better, that it isn’t about what girls are wearing, how we act, that boys need to learn to respect others and their bodies,” Anderson said of the protest.

The students feel the school isn’t doing enough to punish students who harass others, which allows them to continue acting inappropriately. Anderson said anything the school usually does to punish students accused of harassment is “small and meaningless.”

“When a student brings their problem to the attention of the deans they are mostly told they will start an investigation to which nothing meaningful ever gets done or the victim is never even contacted again,” Anderson said.

The school should be a safe place for students to be, Anderson said, calling the learning environment “unhealthy” with how often incidents of harassment occur. She said there needs to be more punishments and more resources to help students impacted by sexual harassment.

LeMoine said the school takes any issue of sexual assault seriously and has worked to make Huntley High School a safer place through security measures, including more cameras.

“No student should ever feel unsafe in their own school. We recognize that we have a responsibility to not only protect our students, but to listen to them and respond to their needs. At Huntley High School and throughout our district, we have remained committed to addressing each student’s concerns with the appropriate level of privacy in an effective manner,” LeMoine said.

Last spring, Principal Marcus Belin created a video to bring attention to the issue at the school.

“If you see something that is just completely against what we believe, you have to say something,” Belin said in the video.

Belin said the school wants students to be aware of what sexual assault is and will provide resources to students who need them.