Editor's note: This post is in response to a letter sent to school administrators by Vermont Agency of Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe. A copy is attached below.

Over the last few days, I have been proud to see so many fellow students in the Vermont State House, presenting in legislative committees and giving our voice to the future's priorities.  We and our priorities are diverse: from net neutrality, to gun safety, to substance abuse prevention, to environmental preservation.  What we have in common with one another is our ability to stand up and fight for what we are passionate about.  We are talking about the issues because those who should be, aren't.  You should be proud of our civility and our questions and our presentations and arguments for a future we have to live with.  You should be optimistic about the future, about our future, because it is us students who are the future.

Several groups, including the survivors of the Parkland Shooting, have called for demonstrations of solidarity on March 14 at 10 a.m. regarding school shootings and the lack of safety.  This is a direct response to our murders in our halls that are meant to symbolize safety and education and opportunity.  We have called for walkouts from schools because in this day and age, with the inaction of legislation, we are not safe in our schools.  We are dying.  Out of fifty states in the U.S., forty-three have felt the agony of school shootings, of the murder of our nation's future.

First and foremost, you need to support our right to freedom of speech as well as to peaceably assemble.  We are engaging in civil debate and reform with or without you, especially surrounding immediate threats to our safety and our future.  Vermont has a strong tradition of progressive beliefs and advancements, including the voice of students.  You should celebrate us because we are actively engaging ourselves in a nation we are about to unsteadily inherit because we want to be the driving force that shapes Vermont, our home.  You always need our voice, because the decisions made will have lasting effects on us, not just you.

That said, the first amendment not only includes freedom of speech but a right for the people to peaceably assemble.  Our walkouts, our leaving classes, our "disruptions" are us exercising our rights civilly, which you have admitted clearly to supporting.  Our goal is not to run rampant in classes, to overthrow our teachers and administration, but to walk out to draw attention to an issue that poses a threat to our lives.  Leaving school with or without permission poses the same, equal risk.  Leaving school is just as safe as staying in, especially when we are leaving to draw attention to the lack of safety in our schools.

Numerous teachers and administrators across this state and across this nation are supporting us in our journey for change.  If you want to maintain an orderly environment, let us make our statement.  We'll do it with your support, or without your support.  Until you have gathered hundreds of students in one space for an assembly to maintain seventeen minutes of total silence, I firmly believe that you have no say in how we want to draw attention to our own issues.  This is our fight for our lives, and we will not let others tell us to sit in a state of passivity and complacency.  Sitting in silence is not how Parkland and its survivors want to be honored, they want action and our voices.  The least we can do for them is to fight alongside them in saving our futures.

We are writing to our legislative figures.  We are bringing students to the State House.  We are living our daily lives in honor of the students we lost along the way in our fight for change.  How long do you want us to sit in our locked classrooms in the dark because of threats?

This is our extraordinary moment in history.  This is the footprint we will leave behind, the crudely written in notes in our textbooks because this is a part of history we wish we could push aside and sweep under the rug.  Us exercising our rights is us demonstrating our ability to be proper citizens with voices and their own beliefs because living a life of ignorance aids no one.  We do not need you "teaching" us that leading our communities is done without treading on the rights of our fellow citizens and that it must be done in the way of democracy.  These walkouts and demonstrations are our democracy, planned events by the majority of students who feel unsafe in our supposed safe haven of education.  A joint assembly, "convened by adults and students working together" is not the only way to affirm the nation's belief that us students deserve to be in schools free from fear.

Ms. Holcombe, I encourage you to work with us students to better understand and support us in this fight.  This is our civil and our peaceful student expression and student voice.  Holding us to your codes of behavior will not get anything done.  A quiet, passive call for help has never made an impactful change in history.  Important movements we learn about, like civil rights, were not done through following the status quo.  We do not plan to just accept your codes of behavior, we will continue to fight tooth and nail to get the changes we want to see.

We will not stop.  We will not sit any longer.  We are not your public trust.  We are not your children.  We are the change we want to see.