Governor

After Foiled School Shooting Plots, Vt. Students Urge ‘See Something, Say Something' Message

Vermont high schoolers are earning praise for helping share the safety message, "if you see something, say something."

Gov. Phil Scott, R-Vermont, and Don Tinney, the president of the Vermont NEA, the union for educators, announced the winners of a contest asking students to produce a public service announcement spreading that slogan.

The contest followed a handful of recent cases, including in Fair Haven and Middlebury, where police said suspected plots to carry out school shootings were stopped by tips from young people—before anyone was hurt.

The winning PSA came from Hazen Union High School In Hardwick.

"On the news nowadays, it's all about school safety and school shootings, and I know as a high schooler and being surrounded by other high schoolers, when we get threats or hear these things, it's unsettling," said Hazen senior Tivy Parchment, who worked on the winning project. "And I think moments like this — when people acknowledge there is a danger and to be proactive and acknowledge it and to try to be kind of activist and fight against that — makes people feel more secure."

Hazen's PSA, along with others from Stafford Technical Center in Rutland and Northwest Technical Center in St. Albans, will be distributed to Vermont broadcasters, which have agreed to air the awareness-raising campaigns.

The winning schools also got cash prizes from the Vermont NEA to spend on their media production classes.

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