Franklin Students Plan Walkout On March 14

REISTERSTOWN, MD — Students from Franklin High School are planning to join a national movement this week protesting recent gun violence in schools and calling for stricter laws. Students will walk out of class starting at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 14.

The walkout events are planned across the country after 17 students and staff were killed and numerous people injured in the Valentine's Day massacre in Parkland, Florida.

Students participating in the national walkout on March 14 will leave their classrooms for 17 minutes – one minute for each life taken at the school on Feb. 14, according to organizers.

"Students and staff have the right to teach and learn in an environment free from the worry of being gunned down in their classrooms or on their way home from school," organizers say. "Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day. We are not safe at school."

Say organizers: "Congress must take meaningful action to keep us safe and pass federal gun reform legislation that address the public health crisis of gun violence."

You can find a full list of schools participating in the national walkout here, occurring a month after the Florida school shooting.

Other walkouts are planned in Baltimore County at Carver, Catonsville High School, CCBC - Catonsville, Chesapeake High School, Common Ground Community Center, Loch Raven High School, Perry Hall High School and Towson High School.

Schools across the nation have been on high alert since the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School resulted in 17 killed and more than a dozen others injured in Parkland, Florida.

Threats to schools, many of them turning out to be unsubstantiated, have skyrocketed.
There have been 838 school-based threats or violent incidents in the U.S. since the Parkland shooting — an average of 70 per school day, according to the Educator's School Safety Network.

— By Patch editors Elizabeth Janney and Kara Seymour

Main image, demonstrators support gun control reform near the White House on February 19, 2018, in Washington, DC, days after a high school in Parkland, Florida. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)