Is It Time, Again?

Is it time, again?

With a virtual army of social media followers, survivors from Stoneman Douglas High School may be seizing an opportunity to take their futures into their own hands, inspiring young people nationwide to end the scourge of violence they know all too well.

That opportunity is reminiscent of the one that students at Wayland (Mass.) High School took control of in 1981 following the deaths of two classmates, days apart, in impaired driving crashes. They founded an organization called SADD (then Students Against Driving Drunk, now Students Against Destructive Decisions).

By the mid-90s, in no small part because of the action and bravery of those students, the number of youth killed in alcohol-related car crashes had been reduced by more than 60 percent. One small program in one small school in one small town in Massachusetts grew into a national juggernaut supporting some 10,000 chapters in middle and high schools across the country. Hundreds of thousands of young people literally changed the national narrative around the acceptability of driving under the influence.

Perhaps the time has arrived to let youth take the lead, supported by the good work of organizations like Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, in helping to craft a solution to school violence.

Students rallied yesterday afternoon in Fort Lauderdale and there are suggestions many more across the land could be doing so by Tuesday.

Perhaps it’s time, again.