BRUNSWICK

Weather-related school cancellations will mean student walkouts at southern Midcoast high schools won’t happen as planned today.

Organizers of a Brunswick High School walkout hope to plan for another day. Updates are being posted on the Facebook page Strike for Our Lives #Enough.

Brunswick was not alone. Walkouts planned at Morse, Mt. Ararat, Freeport and Lisbon high schools were affected when their affiliated school districts closed due to a drawnout nor’easter.

The tragic shooting that took the lives of 17 students and staff at a Parkland, Florida, high school one month ago has drawn much debate about what should be done to prevent future violence at schools, including students who across the country have organized a walkout event for this morning.

The 17-minute walkout at 10 a.m. was organized to allow students to recognize the lives lost and discuss ways to combat gun violence in schools.

Brunswick High School senior Alyssa Demanche is one of a group of approximately 10 students involved in organizing a walkout.

Many students at BHS are very vocal with their opinions and stances on political issues, Demanche said. She and her friends talk constantly about current events, “especially now that we’re about to be adults,” she said.

“We’re going to be able to vote and have more of a voice in our community and country,” she said.

Students are being vocal about school safety issues because the threats to student safety is happening in their schools, and locally. Demanche pointed to a school in Topsham that had to evacuate last month because of a bomb threat. That followed two complaints of threats at the high school a day earlier.

“We want to make sure we have safety at our schools, so we’re very passionate,” she said. “We want to start a discussion about gun control and gun violence, and also mental health in schools.

“Violence tends to rise after violence, so there are times when we are scared,” Demanche said.

After the Parkland shooting, many students didn’t come to school because they were afraid someone could have been inspired by the incident there, she said.

Demanche credited school administrators for working to make students feel safe, but said there are still ways people can get guns and for a massive attack to happen, “and we’ll always fear for that because of the time we live in, which is horrific, but just what we’re dealing with as students right now.”

She added that the Parkland students speaking out on school violence issues has given her and her fellow students more of a voice.

“The students who were at Parkland are the ones who had to be in that room waiting to know if they were going to be next,” Demanche said. “We can sympathize. We’re also waiting to see if we’re going to be next.”

However, Demanche is confident solutions exist, whether it is in the form of gun reform — making it harder for people to get guns who shouldn’t have them or raising the age for when people can get gun — or whether it is improving the mental health care system or making sure all students have a safe and stable place to talk and be heard.

“We are definitely going to make some kind of change,” Demanche said. “I think the impact that students have right now is great and we’re ready for change and we’re going to make it happen.”

dmoore@timesrecord.com