Vermont students will be joining their peers around the U.S. on Wednesday, remembering those killed in the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, by staging walkouts from their own high schools.
What started with a post on social media, by organizers of the Women’s March on Washington reacting to the news of the mass shooting on Feb. 14, has grown into a national student-led call for action against gun violence. On Wednesday morning, March 14, at 10 a.m., students across the country will walk out of their high schools, and stay out for 17 minutes — one minute for every life lost in the shooting.
In Vermont as in the rest of the country, students have been organizing the demonstrations, and they will be leading them, but they are doing so in most cases in conjunction with teachers and administrators.
The Burlington School District issued a statement last week expressing its support of what has become a national movement. “We are working with the principals in each of our schools to ensure that any and all activities undertaken in our District on the 14th will be done in an age-appropriate manner, be student-led and above all happen in a safe manner,” the district statement said.
Vermont’s secretary of education, Rebecca Holcombe, sent a memo to school administrators in February urging them to “talk it out” with students, and help them find other ways to express their demands.
Acknowledging that Vermont was part of “an extraordinary moment in history,” that required young people to be engaged as citizens, Holcombe said, “However, this also means teaching them to do so in ways that are not disruptive to the rights of others and in ways that model the skills of democracy.”
Darren Allen, spokesperson for Vermont NEA, said the teachers union is telling its members to work with school administrators while also supporting their students’ First Amendment rights. “I think we can all universally agree we want our schools to be safe,” Allen said. “I know our members and educators in those buildings put the safety of kids above all else.”
Chloe Lyons, a student at Mount Abraham Union High School, said her high school would be joining the walkout, and some students, though not all, would also be leaving the school campus to continue demonstrating.
After the initial 17-minute walkout is concluded, she said, “students who do not want consequences from the administration or who do not stand with us politically will walk back inside.” Others are planning to go into Bristol, to continue the demonstration.
Bill Kimball, superintendent of the Washington Central Supervisory Union, said students would be leading these events, not adults. He stressed the importance of students with differing views having respect for one another. He also said students have been informed they may face consequences for skipping class, and for leaving the school campus.
But, Kimball said, engaging in civil activism that comes with consequences is part of the lesson. “If you walk out of school there is an issue there,” he said, “but still there are positives and negatives, and they need to reflect on that ahead of time and learn it.’
Students at one of Kimball’s schools, U-32 High School, plan to gather in front of the school for the 17-minute demonstration, then have a “talk-in” with the principal.
Students have the right to learn, and teachers have the right to teach, free from the fear of being gunned down, said Meg Allison, the faculty adviser for U32’s Seeking Social Justice group.
“Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day,” a press release from Seeking Social Justice said.
Kimball expressed pride in the students, who, he said, are organizing, planning and running the protest events. “This is an incredible, invaluable teaching moment, and not for a teacher to tell the students what to do but to have them learn authentically,” Kimball said.
Kimball says among his schools’ goals for graduating students is that they engage, and become active in the community, whether local or global. “That is exactly what this is. It is so powerful for students around the nation, and they are finding their own voice, having discussions about it and looking at all the possible angles, from kids who want to be active to those who want nothing to do with it. This is a powerful teachable moment.”
A group of superintendents in the Winooski Valley, from Lamoille to White River Junction, released a statement on Friday expressing pride in their students, and saying they would work with student leadership groups interested in advocacy. “We are working to ensure that students are safe and respectful while promoting a climate of discourse that is civil and responsible,” the superintendents’ statement said.
Champlain Valley Union High School students are planning a more political event that will include a letter-writing campaign to lawmakers. Protest events also are being planned for schools in St. Albans and Randolph.
One Vermont high school that appears not to have made plans for the day is Fair Haven High School, the school that was recently targeted by one of its own.
March 14, the day of the student demonstration, is the day police say Jack Sawyer, a former Fair Haven student, had chosen for his own mass shooting. Sawyer, 18, faces multiple charges in connection with the threatened school shooting.
Fair Haven students have not talked about demonstrating, Addison-Rutland Superintendent Brooke Olsen-Farrell said. “In all honesty, not a single student has brought up the national walkout to the administration. It seems students and staff would like to focus on moving forward as a school.”
If students do express an interest in joining the March 14 events, Olsen-Farrell said, they would be supported. She said she would encourage a “talk-out” as a less anxiety-producing approach that would allow students who want to to participate in the national moment.
Correction: A statement from a press release was wrongly attributed to Meg Allison, of U-32.
