By DOMENICPOLI
Staff Writer
GREENFIELD – Roughly 90 students from Four Rivers Charter Public School accepted the likelihood of suspension and walked out Monday morning to march to the Greenfield Common in solidarity with victims and families of the Parkland, Fla., shooting last year and all others affected by gun violence.
The young people left campus at 10 a.m. and walked along Colrain Street to Main Street, where they turned left and chanted their way to the Common to have their voices heard. Most of the students held handmade signs that expressed anger, anguish and desperate cries for change. At the Common, some took turns with a megaphone and read statements from their smartphones to rally the participants and explain why they were there.
“The idea of being shot in school is terrifying,” said 15-year-old Ella Parker, who organized the march with 17-year-old Gina Magin. The event lasted about 2½ hours.
Chants of “Hey hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill today?” and “No more silence, end gun violence” and others filled the Common as several passing motorists tooted their horns. During the march and on the Common, organizers shouted “Show me what democracy looks like” and scores of students chanted back “This is what democracy looks like.”
The calls gave way to 17 minutes of silence – one for each person killed in the MarjoryStoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida on Feb. 14, 2018, that spawned the March For Our Lives demonstrations across the United States.
Several Four Rivers students held up two fingers in a peace sign while the crowd faced north during the silence. Some of the signs read “Fear has no place in my school” and “Books Not Bullets,” and one read “The only guns I want to see are … Ruth BaderGinsburg’s,” with a photograph of the Supreme Court justice lifting dumbbells as part of her well-documented workout routine.
“I should never have to text my family from under a desk to say goodbye for the final time. I should never have to do the government’s job. I am a high-schooler, and if I have to do their job for them, that’s saying something,” Magin said to cheers from the crowd. “Thoughts and prayers are not preventing guns from killing our children. Thoughts and prayers will solve nothing. Take action. That is what I tell you today. I want you to take a stand for what you believe in, because if they don’t do their job, we will.”
A few speakers referenced last week’s pair of shootings at New Zealand mosques that have left 50 dead. Thirteen-year-old Lucy Crocker said her uncle was near one of the mosques during the attack and was nearly killed. She said she cannot imagine her family moving on if anything happened to her uncle.
Students also mentioned the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Virginia Tech and Columbine High School.
Joe Reynolds, an adult bystander standing behind the crowd of students, said the demonstration brought him back to the protests that were common decades ago.
“It reminds me of the ’60s and ’70s when we stood up,” he said. “They’re standing up. If you don’t stand up, you get nothing done.”
The students who left school as part of the protest were suspended the remainder of the day as well as today.
“We notified students and families ahead of time that this would be the consequence, so that they could make informed choices about whether to engage in an act of civil disobedience or not,” Four Rivers Principal Peter Garbus said in a statement. “Accepting consequences when a cause is that important is part of the act itself.”
Garbus said the school at 248 Colrain Road walks a line between admiration and support for passionate students and the school’s responsibilities as an institution.
“In one respect, parents expect their children to be at school under our care. When students walk out, we can no longer ensure their safety or care,” he said. “In another respect, we want to prepare students at Four Rivers to engage important issues and contribute to a better world. We want them addressing issues of gun violence. We want them addressing legal and legislative issues surrounding gun control. We want them taking a stand and trying to make a difference.
“The organizing group of students wrote a letter to our faculty in which they said their actions today embody the most important learning outcomes our school aims towards,” Garbus added.
The principal said the charter school consists of 219 students in grades 7 through 12.
March organizers booked the Greenfield Library Community Room today and the student protesters plan to gather there to complete all school assignments and to discuss what more can be done about gun violence.
Reach DomenicPoli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.