Students all around the nation staged walkouts at 10 a.m. March 14 to speak out about many things, including school safety and gun violence.

While Lewiston High School was one of the schools to participate, organizers made it clear that the walk-out was not mandatory for students, and that it was not about guns or gun violence, but simply about school safety.

The LHS walkout, attended by around 300 students, was geared towards students sharing their experiences with kindness in hardship. Students shared their advice about getting through hard times in high school, and they remembered victims of previous school shootings across the nation.

Speakers included LHS student resource officer, Rob Massey, with ASB president, Mason Bartholomei, and a handful of students.

Among the powerful student speakers was Megan McRoberts, a junior who told her classmates about surviving trauma.

“What changed me was one day someone at school decided to hang out with me for the entire day,” McRoberts said. “That one day is what flipped a switch in my brain. From that moment on, I try every single day to be the person I needed for two years and didn’t have.” McRoberts, alongside many of her peers, made it clear that schools need to improve school safety, and that they wanted to use their voices to spark the change.