Over 20 School Walkouts Planned In The Hudson Valley Wednesday

Wednesday, March 14 is a national school walkout to protest gun violence in the US.

Nearly a month after the Parkland, Florida school shooting, schools across the country have planned the #ENOUGH walk out on Wednesday, March 14 at 10 a.m. local time, for 17 minutes, to honor those who were killed at Stoneman Douglas High School.

Within the Hudson Valley, 29 walkouts are planned at different schools. NBC compiled an interactive list of all the planned walkouts in the country. These are the schools in the Hudson Valley with protests planned:

• Ardsley High School
• Byram Hills High School
• Beacon High School
• Brewster High School
• Carmel High School
• Catskill High School
• Eastchester High School
• Fishkill/#Enough In Southern Dutchess
• Chatham High School
• Hudson High School
• Lagrangeville/Arlington High School
• Mahopac High School
• Mamaroneck High School
• Nanuet Senior High School
• New Hyde Park/Herricks High SChool
• New Hyde Park/New Hyde Park Memorial High School
• New Paltz Senior High School
• New Rochelle High School
• New Rochelle/Albert Lenorard Middle School
• Nyack High School
• Nyack Middle School
• Pelham Memorial High School
• Red Hook High School
• Rye High School
• Saugerties Jr/Senior High
• Scarsdale/Edgemont High School
• Staatsburg/Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School
• Tarrytown/Hackley School
• Wappingers Falls/Roy C. Ketcham High School

Students are encouraged by EMPOWER, the organization where the idea for the protests came from, to contact school administrators to gain permission to have the walk out. Most schools across the nation have granted permission, some have encouraged other forms of protest, and some schools have forbidden it, as reported by CNN. If a school does not allow the walkout, a student can be punished the same they would be if they skipped class. However, they cannot be punished more harshly because they walked out to express a political view. Schools who forbid the walkouts could actually face consequences.

The goal of the walkout is to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, mandate background checks on all gun sales, and pass a law that would allow courts to remove guns from people who show signs of violent behavior.