Maine students walked out of class Thursday morning, eoching calls to end gun violence that went up from protests at schools across the country Wednesday.
Young people from across the state whose Wednesday classes were canceled by this week’s rolling blizzard joined the thousands of American students who are demanding action in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Florida last month.
At Portland’s Casco Bay High School more than 100 students left class for 17 minutes — one minute for each victim in the Feb. 14 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. While up the coast in Belfast demonstrators read the names of the dead at a rally downtown and called for assault rifle bans as the First Church rang its bells.
“Although we couldn’t walk out yesterday, we’re showing that we’re not giving up,” Tasha Hipple, a 14-year-old Casco Bay freshman, told the crowd outside her school. “If you want to fall asleep knowing that you will survive school the next day, then you need to shout.”
Students in Freeport, Marshwood, York and Yarmouth high schools joined in the national protest Wednesday, while organizers at other Maine schools postponed because of the storm. Yet more protests are set to come, with Bangor area schools expected to stage their walkouts Friday.
It wasn’t immediately clear Thursday, however, how many related events originally planned for Wednesday in Aroostook would be rescheduled.
Ben Sirois, superintendent for SAD 27 in the Fort Kent area, said Thursday morning that he was unaware of any plans by students in that district to reschedule a school forum that was intended, not to focus on gun rights or gun violence, but to show “support for the victims of Parkland and to rally for school safety.”
Madawaska High School principal Wayne Anderson said he expects students at that school will likely reschedule the event for a date yet to be determined.
“The school has no issue honoring the students’ wishes to reschedule this event and will work with the student body to ensure their planned event can happen at a future time,” Anderson said.
In the Hodgdon area, SAD 70 Superintendent Scott Richardson said it was his understanding that students would hold a make-up walkout event on Monday, but he was uncertain as to what time that event may occur.
At Washburn District High School, Interim Principal Melanie Cote said a walkout that had been originally planned for March 14 would would not be made up nor would administrators hold an alternative event due to lack of student interest.
RSU 39 Superintendent Tim Doak said on Thursday that Caribou High School students did not plan anything new because many of the student leaders who had been organizing the event were attending a National Honor Society convention in Orono the rest of the week.
Doak said Caribou High School Principal Travis Barnes, who could not be reached on Thursday, told him that the students may still hold an event that recognizes the lives lost, but that it would likely focus on promoting kindness among students as opposed to a walkout.
Barnes said last week that students there were focusing on the #walkupnotout campaign, which encourages students to walk up to fellow classmates and introduce themselves, with the goal of reducing feelings of alienation in schools.
Administrators at schools in the Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield, Mars Hill and Houlton areas where walkouts or other related activities had been scheduled or were to be allowed on Wednesday could not immediately be reached Thursday to determine whether alternate plans were in the works.
At Cape Elizabeth High School Thursday, a student performed a rendition of the Andra Day song “Rise Up” on piano before her classmates read short biographies of each of the people killed in the Parkland, Florida, shooting.
“Our ultimate goal is to empower students,” Cape Elizabeth senior Christie Gillies, 18, told the Bangor Daily News. “Even if you can’t vote, you can still do something. You can use your voice to fight for our lives and stand with students across the country.”
Like the country, Maine is divided on how to address gun violence — which remains a rarity here relative to other states.
In 2016, Mainers narrowly voted down a ballot initiative to expand background checks, with much of the funding for and against the measure coming from outside groups, including a gun control advocacy group bankrolled by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the National Rifle Association.
Schools around the state likewise took different positions on student walkouts.
In School Administrative District 13, in rural Somerset County, students and staff were initially told that they would face punishment if they left class, but the school administration eventually backed off that position.
In Lisbon, where discipline was also threatened, no students walked out Wednesday, according to a school administrator reached by phone. However, The Times Record, reported that six students walked out of Lisbon High School on Thursday.
“As a 17 year-old, I don’t see myself as a child,” student Madison Smit told the newspaper “I have my own opinions separate from my parents views. I’m worried about my own safety, and my peers’ safety. For them (the school district) to say they don’t want us to do it, it hurt.”
In Belfast, students postponed their walkout until next week, but the RSU 71 school board will host a meeting to discuss school safety on Thursday night from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Belfast Area High School.
In left-leaning Portland, the public school administration permitted the walkout and hundreds of students filled the plaza in front of City Hall Thursday morning, where they were greeted by city leaders including Mayor Ethan Strimling and Police Chief Michael Sauschuck, the Portland Press Herald reported.
At Casco Bay High School, students expressed frustration with the stagnant debate over gun violence and demanded more of political leaders — a call that’s gone up from young people around the country since the latests in a long line of mass shootings.
“The people in charge, the elders in charge right now, have control of our future and they’re kinda messing it up,” said 16-year-old junior Phoebe Kolbert.
Writers Nick McCrea, Seth Koenig, Callie Ferguson and Beth Brogan of the Bangor Daily News, Jessica Potila of Fiddlehead Focus, Melissa Lizotte of The Star Herald , Christopher Bouchard of the Aroostook Republican and Joseph Cyr of the Houlton Pioneer Times contributed to this report.
