NORTH VERNON — Administrators and staff at Jennings County High School expressed support for the teens who chose to participate in what the students called “A Walk Together.”
More than 200 among the 1,200-student population voluntarily walked into the halls Wednesday morning to participate, principal Tom Black said.
While some students in other parts of the country used Wednesday to advocate for stronger gun laws, students in Jennings County were more focused on advocating kindness.
The Jennings County event, organized by high school senior Shelby Milspaugh, honored shooting victims at a Florida high school by having each student strive to perform 17 acts of kindness each week for the rest of the school year.
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The number 17 represents the number of people who were killed, with an equal number wounded, during the Feb. 14 mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Wednesday’s demonstrations were conducted exactly one month after the killings.
Describing “A Walk Together” as the right manner for addressing concerns, Jennings County senior Blaich Blanton said everyone’s goal is to improve student safety, “which I believe starts with us, the students,” she said.
The principal said he agrees with Blanton.
It was the right manner, Black said, because the youngsters will continue to honor victims of student violence and promote school safety daily, instead of just for one or two days.
“Hopefully this will encourage a discussion for change,” senior Brady Shepherd said.
The brief observance was concluded by a moment of silence for all school violence victims everywhere before the students returned to their classes.
Plans call for spreading the message of kindness, along with school safety steps, into Jennings County grade schools over the next month, also to be organized by Milspaugh.
No demonstrations were conducted in public high schools in Columbus or Hope, since those students are on spring break this week.
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From Maine to Hawaii, an estimated 3,000 student protests and demonstrations Wednesday became the biggest demonstration yet of student activism that has emerged in response to last month’s massacre of 17 people at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The coordinated walkouts were loosely organized by Empower, the youth wing of the Women’s March, which brought thousands to Washington, D.C., last year.
The group urged students to leave class at 10 a.m. local time for 17 minutes — one minute for each victim in the Florida shooting — and suggested demands for lawmakers, including an assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun sales.
But each community was urged to shape its own protests.
Source: The Associated Press
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Wednesday’s events at schools across the country were just one of several protests planned for coming weeks.
The March for Our Lives rally for school safety is expected to draw hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital March 24, its organizers said.
And another round of school walkouts is planned for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado.
Source: The Associated Press
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