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Chicago-Area Students Plan to Participate in Gun Control Walkout Next Week

The students are protesting what they call congressional inaction on gun control.

Students at Lyons Township High School and across the country have been planning for weeks in preparation for next week’s student walkout over gun laws--and school administrators across the area say safety must come first.

"The final goal is to unite the school and get the gun control we feel we deserve," said LTHS student Mary Beck.

Mary beck is one of many students fed up with campus violence. She says she's planning to join high school students across the city and suburbs in a national walkout Wednesday.

"We’re going to come outside and form a human chain," she said. "United in what we believe in."

The students are protesting what they call congressional inaction on gun control.

At Hinsdale School District 86 the superintendent says students are not encouraged to leave class.

"To disrupt school and put themselves in a potentially unsafe situation, we’re saying they don’t have a First Amendment right to do that," said Supt. Bruce Law.

Hinsdale students could face disciplinary action to be determined on a case by case basis.

Chicago Public Schools provided its policy on student demonstrations to NBC 5 which states:

“Students who walk out and do not return should be marked as an unexcused absence and their parents should be notified that the student has left school grounds and not returned after student walk out.”

Lyons Township officials plan to release a statement to parents next week.

Some students say they plan to walkout between 10 and 10:17 a.m. in memory of the 17 lives lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

District 300, which has schools in Algonquin, Carpentersville and Hampshire, says students who walkout will face consequences--but has provided options for students to express their feelings and frustrations inside the building.

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