While high schoolers were busy making signs, marching down Stockton Drive, holding their rally, and attending breakout sessions, middle schoolers were on the other side of the school, equally busy, participating in their own student-led activities designed to protest gun violence.

Middle School students–which Wednesday included the fifth grade–began their day in the auditorium with a presentation about the 2nd Amendment from seventh grade history teacher and department co-chair Anthony Shaker and upper school history teacher and department co-chair Andy Bigelow.

Following the presentation and after being joined by the Upper School in the auditorium and listening to opening remarks, the fifth through eighth grades began their series of activities, which included a march and rally, a small group conversation about gun violence, a study hall period in the library, and open gym play.

“We tried to create ideas and activities for people in the whole middle school to stand up if they want to and do it in a comfortable way,” eighth grader and middle school organizer Ava Utigard said at the MX, “and they can explore standing up how they want.”

The middle schoolers had filled out a Google form requesting which activities they wanted to be a part of, with 52% of fifth through eighth graders participating in the rally and the subsequent march, according to Intermediate and Middle School Head John Novick.

Sporting bright orange hats and cheers so loud they could be heard two streets over where the high school had congregated in front of the Lincoln Park Conservatory, the middle schoolers took a march route around Parker’s block and finished on the field.

When the activities concluded at around 10:45 a.m., they returned to their classes and had regular scheduling for the remainder of the day, unlike the high school programming, which lasted the entire school day.

Novick saw benefits to this shorter period. “The younger you are, the more you find comfort and safety in routine,” Novick said. “So for fifth through seventh grade, if we spent a whole day on gun violence, I’d have probably 30% of them really feeling unsettled and anxious and worried.”

The day–which was part of a week filled with gun control-related activities–was planned by a group of 20 eighth grade volunteers who had expressed particular concern about the events in Florida. The eighth grade leaders led teach-ins on gun violence and control on Tuesday–one for fifth and sixth graders, and one for seventh and eighth graders. On Friday, they also led a follow-up meeting to the march and rally to reflect and discuss the next steps.

Novick emphasized how big a role the students played in organizing. “Our job was to make sure that whatever they did was safe, matched the Parker mission, and included everybody–including, at this age, kids who didn’t want to participate,” Novick said. “That was our only job as adults. Everything else, they did.”

Missing from the activities was both the fourth grade and the entire lower school. According to Novick, fourth graders may still have difficulty discussing and processing issues like these.

For even younger students, talking about gun violence to children in the lower school would be counterproductive, according to Lower School Head Kimeri Swanson-Beck. “It would bring up too many kinds of controversy that I don’t think it would help children grow,” Swanson-Beck said. “If it would help them grow, we would do it, but I don’t think that at this point them having that knowledge would make them better students or better people.”

Novick felt that the day was a success in the middle school. “It was one of the most inspirational, positive, interesting days I’ve had in 30 years as an educator,” Novick said. “It was really an important, beautiful day, and I’m so proud of all the kids and the teachers for taking care of them.”

The eighth graders are planning to continue their action. “We don’t think this is going to be the end of the march,” eighth grader Cece Lopez said. “There’s going to be so much more. This is not the end–this is just the beginning. This is our calling.”