As a proud graduate of School Administrative District 51, I implore my alma mater to be quick to stand for the coming marches for support of gun control. Far too many lives have been lost to mass shootings targeting schools not unlike Greely High School. Greely, however, unlike many schools, is one with a student body that collectively exudes strong community and is supported by extensive networks of families, teachers, coaches and friends, all of whom wish only the best for their students. Let us extend that support to the work needed to ensure all high schools can be safe, caring and ethical learning spaces that Greely enjoys so well.

In my own Greely education, there was never a text that I read or a lesson that I can remember that does not in some manner call for standing in support of the 17 now-dead students in Florida. The goal of a Greely education is to provide the necessary tools to become a caring citizen of not just one’s immediate community, one’s state, but of the globe. In order to become a citizen in any capacity, one must first be able to recognize the shared human links that connect us. We take a second language to communicate with others; we take history, English, and art to express ourselves; we take math and science to humble us. To stand in support of the dead and to march in support of change are just the physical expressions of a Greely education. Rangers, Lead the Way!

Ryan Rybka
Belchertown, Massachusetts