TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — A youth violence prevention assembly at Nims Middle School aimed to educate students on the risks they already face and how informed decisions now can prevent serious consequences later.
- Nims Middle School was the host site for the assembly, which focused on gun violence awareness, digital safety, and legal accountability before problems escalate.
- Students learned how social media, group chats, and split-second decisions can carry adult legal consequences.
- Watch the video below to see how college students and community leaders showed middle school students what preparation, mentorship, and making the right choices can lead to.
Students learn how online choices can carry real-world consequences
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
In a Tallahassee middle school, the conversations weren't about homework or lunch periods. They were about choices, consequences, and the future.
I'm Lyric Sloan in Southwest Tallahassee at Nims Middle School, where students heard directly from local law enforcement, the State Attorney's Office of the 2nd Judicial Circuit, college mentors, and local leaders about the real-life implications of gun violence, online behavior, and split-second decisions that could change their lives forever.
Inside Nims Middle School, Wednesday morning, students weren't filing into class; they were walking into a Youth Violence Prevention Assembly.
The focus: gun violence awareness, digital safety, and legal accountability, topics organizers say many students are already encountering through phones, social media, and peer pressure, often without realizing the risks.
Those risks can include criminal charges tied to online threats, explicit images, or disputes that quickly spill offline.
"Our big goal is to one educate them about the adult realities about some of the things that they may or may not be involved in or seeing their peers involved with and understand what comes with that, right? But then also on the other side of that, show them the opportunities that exist for them to be way more than that," Royle King, LCSO Council on the Status of Men and Boys Executive Director, said.
One way organizers did that was by bringing in college student mentors, closer in age, to show middle schoolers what taking a positive path can look like, and how preparation matters just as much as talent.
"The setup. The setup is the most important. Like, what you do is important, but how you get there is really what matters. Because if you're not ready, if you're not prepared, if you're not set up to succeed, then you won't succeed because you weren't prepared for it," Ashley Saddler, FAMU Student, said.
The Leon County Sheriff's Office Council on the Status of Men and Boys, says this assembly was exactly that, a set up allowing them to prepare students with the knowledge they need to know now before a single message post or decision puts their future at risk,
"We have some situations that are directly related to violence, even here on the campus and in our community nearby and so hearing from the law enforcement, even hearing the college perspective, the college student's perspective, and, of course, the state attorney and how it impacts them as young adults in terms of what they're doing now and how it impacts their future, definitely was a main reason to hold it here," Deshone Hedrington, Nims Middle School Principal, said.
For many students, the message hit close to home, especially when it came to how quickly social media, group chats and split second decisions can turn serious for one student.
It also sparked a plan for moving forward.
"Focus on sports and staying away from bad crowds," Leroy Arnold, Nims Middle School Student, said.
Organizers say the goal is prevention, reaching students early before mistakes turn into records, and giving them the tools, mentors, and support to choose a different path.
King says the goal is to reach young minds in the community before violence reaches them.
He tells me more assemblies are planned in 2026 across Leon County, including high schools.
The goal is to make sure that all schools have access to these life-changing conversations.
In Southwest Tallahassee, Lyric Sloan ABC 27.
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