In response to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students all across the nation came together in an attempt to make a change by participating in an organized walkout event.

Senior class president, Isabella Martinez-Aleman, wrote a letter addressing the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, bringing up the issue of mental health and how our school should do more to help address it. In response the school showed great interest by planning to create a program to better address the issue of mental health. On Mar. 14 students and faculty walked out to the Sean Taylor Memorial field for 17 minutes and stood in the shape of the letters “MSD” support of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

“I realized that what we could do in our own community was not only address the event but re-evaluate the way in which we deal with mental illness. The way in which we deal with it as a society isn’t correct, so we might as well start in our own small community and try to build outwards,” said Martinez-Aleman.

Other schools also responded. On the one-week anniversary of the shooting the students at nearby schools such as Miami Palmetto High School and Coral Reef Senior High took part
in a protest against gun violence. On Mar. 14 the students at Palmetto walked out onto the field and stood in the shape of “MSD” for 17 minutes releasing one balloon each minute for each of the victims, while students at Coral Reef also walked out in protest for 17 minutes. Like we did at our own school, those students spoke out, read letters or recited poems.

“Going out and actually making a statement together as a student body felt empowering, like we could really make a difference,” said Palmetto student Emily Krause.

Many schools all across Florida came together in support of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, with many joining the March for our Lives movement or writing state legislators. The students have decided to take a stand and not let what happened that day be forgotten.