Mt. Tallac students learn how important their voice is

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - While many students across the country hit the streets on National Student Walkout Day, Mt. Tallac students were in the classroom focusing how they can be the future change makers.

Students America Rojas, 17, and Kai Heiden, 17, created a slide show for their classmates and staff. There were 19 slides, representing the 17 students who lost their lives one month ago in Parkland, Florida, along with the copy of a poem written by one of the victims (seen at the end of this story).

There was no speaking through the 17-minute presentation since those 17 young people are now silenced.

Kai said they wanted to focus on all of 17 with their first name, photo and personal touches on each one researched by America who said she wanted to find out who each person was and what their qualities were.

Besides the slide show the students were visited by local Holocust survivor and author Leon Malmed.

"I liked what he said about education," said Kai about Leon's telling the students to take advantage of their education and use it to make a change and be prepared in the world. Malmed, whose parents were taken from him and his sister when he was just four-years-old during WWII, said he used education as his way out of an experience many cannot imagine.

Student Matt Bergsten, 18, created a piece of art to represent his feelings about the day's events as a result of the 17 students shot to death while at school on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2018.

"I express how I feel and put it into art," he said.

School safety was also a focus around the country as well as in South Lake Tahoe.

"I feel really safe here because we're a small school and I feel like you guys (staff) have eyes on us and know who is having a hard time and you check in on them," Matt told the Mt. Tallac staff.

Besides the slide show and visit by Malmed, 17 battery operated candles will be burning at the school until the last ones burns out.

The poem written by victim Alex Schachter just two weeks before the 14-year-old died in the Parkland, Florida school shooting:

'Life is like a roller coaster' by Alex Schachter

Life is like a roller coaster
it has some ups and downs
Sometimes you can take it slow or very fast
It maybe hard to breath at times
but you have to push yourself and keep going
Your bar is your safety
it's like your family and friends
You hold on tight and you don't let go
But sometimes you might throw your hands up
Because your friends and family will always be with you
Just like that bar keeping you safe at all times
It maybe too much for you at times -- the twists, the turns, the upside downs
But you get back up
you keep chugging along
eventually it comes to a stop
you won't know when or how
but you will know that'll be time to get off and start anew
Life is like a roller coaster