Students protest proposed cutbacks in financial aid
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POLSON — Proving that high school students do pay attention and do care, Polson High School seniors Clay Frissell, Riley Kenney, Ian Laimbeer, Riley Lemm and Megan Pope have selected issues that will directly affect all of them and want to do something about it.
The issues are Republican-leadership-proposed cutbacks in federal student aid and skyrocketing college tuition. Since they are seniors, loss of financial aid and ineligibility for financial aid will hit the students hard next fall.
“The proposed cutting of Pell Grants would bring the maximum amount of money that a student could get down from $5,550 to $4,705, almost $1,000 per year. Also, about 1.7 million students who are eligible for the program now would become ineligible after the proposed cuts,” Frissell wrote in the “Occupy Polson Manifesto.”
The manifesto, written by Frissell, is available on Facebook at Occupy Polson along with updates and information about the movement. The students “welcome any and all ideas” on the page and encourage the public to use the page.
The idea for Occupy Polson began when the students’ interest was piqued when Paul Briney, PHS government teacher, explained that high school and college students’ demographic was underrated. Laimbeer and Lemm were in that class and told friends Frissell, Pope and Kenney, and the protest snowballed.
Naming their movement Occupy Polson, the students plan a rally on the Lake County Courthouse lawn beginning Jan. 2 at p.m. and continuing until Feb. 1 at 10 a.m. to explain their issues to the community. The students will be there from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for as many consecutive days as possible.
Obtaining permission from the Lake County Commissioners to make sure their protest was legal was interesting, Frissell commented, since he did not know what the commissioners' duties were or who they were. The commissioners did not want the kids to sleep on the lawn, Frissell said.
“A lot of people have written us off right away since we have 'occupy' in the name,” he explained. “But if people take the time to read the manifesto, they almost always agree with us.”
