A group of Maryland students is proving you're never too young to make your voices heard. Fourth and Fifth graders at Viers Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring held a walkout Friday to express their concerns over the school losing its Title 1 status. That means the school will get less federal funding and will have to cut certain programs and positions next year.
Dozens of Viers Mill Elementary students were learning an important lesson in civic engagement. This protest wasn't organized by parents. The kids did it themselves.
Students Beatrix Padilla and Callie Williams have been working on this for weeks.
"Who knows, I can actually make a change. What if they actually see this?" said Padilla, a fourth grader.
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"We're making history. We're making history for this school," Williams said.
MCPS recently announced Viers Mill was one of four schools that would lose its Title 1 status, something the school system says is calculated based on poverty data. Six other schools in the school district will gain Title 1 status.
The loss in funding means Viers Mill is expected to lose four teaching positions, enrichment programs, summer school and other events such as literacy and STEM Nights.
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"I just really like my reading and math teachers. If we lose Title I, then I won't have them as my reading and math teachers anymore, and they’re really good teachers," Padilla said.
Several parents, including Laurel Kennedy, were on hand to support.
"They were so upset. And really sad," Kennedy said. "They thought, 'Well, what can we do about this?' and the girls had, this idea had been floating about a walkout, and they took it on."
MCPS sent News4 a statement that reads in part: "It goes without saying that our focus on equity remains no matter the Title I status of any school …Title I funds aid in this, but their absence at any school does not mean we deviate from this work."
And while Title 1 status is not something the students can change, they can highlight some of the needs they'll be facing without funding. MCPS says efforts are under way to reduce the impact by adding an additional full-time teacher for next school year.
"I’m just really proud of these kids, and I hope that we can learn something from them," Kennedy said.
MCPS says it’s in the preliminary stages of coordinating a free summer school program at Viers Mill through a partnership with Innovation Learning, an education services company. But nothing is set in stone yet.
The school will still continue to offer free meals to students, thanks to a separate federal program.
