![]() This youth-led movement has been extensively covered in the media and commended by progressive organizations and by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Tens of thousands of students have protested, marched, called their representatives, and advocated for gun reform in new and unique ways. Now, in 2022, I’m disappointed to write that little has tangibly changed even as many more have fallen victim to gun violence. In 2019, three years after the massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, my hometown, and one year after the Parkland, Florida, shooting, I wrote an essay for The Progressive highlighting the persistent fear and frustration students face as we watch headline after headline tell the same painful story. Then, on May 24, 2022, there was news of yet another school shooting, this time in Uvalde, Texas, that took the lives of nineteen elementary students and two teachers.īetween the time I began kindergarten in 2008 and my high school graduation in 2020, a total of 257 school shootings occurred in the United States. What we didn’t see, however, was meaningful policy change. ![]() We witnessed the construction of wire fences around our school as a superficial form of safety. We watched headlines of school after school being hit by tragedy. My generation has had to grapple with record-low mental health rates, racism in our curriculum, and a worldwide pandemic that sent us out of brick-and-mortar schools and into endless Zoom sessions, worsening our isolation and loneliness.Īnd after last month, we’re once again called upon to confront another concern that affects the very existence of our futures: gun violence.Įach year in Florida, where I grew up, we sat through active shooter drills just as often as we prepared for hurricanes. I graduated high school two years ago at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but the challenges we faced then are now magnified among current students. ![]() Competitive pressures have increased, college acceptance rates have gone down, and inequalities between schools have risen.Įach year in Florida, where I grew up, we sat through active shooter drills just as often as we prepared for hurricanes.īut students today face many challenges beyond maintaining their GPAs. School has gotten more difficult for students in recent years. ![]()
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