hello, MLA survivor here and I'm appalled at the fact that our voices weren't considered in the idea of protesting. Why did the organizers fail to reach out to the MLA survivor community with the organizing process to the point where we are only hearing about it today. I'm also highly concerned with the choice to go and protest out side of the school. The students that are currently living that hell do not deserve to be sequestered in their rooms while the protest is happening. which the program will definitely do. going to the school and protesting out front for a whole day and then leaving will only cause more harm to the students there. MLA works with children with learning differences, autism and the nerodivergent community and tho it has constantly failed at accurately diagnosing their students many of them are dealing with slow processing, anxiety, ocd, autism ect. and the presence of a large protest could harm them in the long run (albeit feeling abandoned, confusion, distress from noise and may cause staff to lash out in inappropriate ways). the most recent article in the salt lake tribune about maple lake includes a statement from the program directors that essentially says that the survivors from MLA are Unstable and altho I am someone who is all for protesting I fear that the organizers don't care about showing our stories in an effective manor which could be furthering that stigma of us being unsuccessful, unstable, and infantile and furthering their ableist agenda. we want to share our stories and I want to share my story but not for the profit and monihtazation of several organizations who never reached out to us and asked if this is how we wanted our story to be told. If you decide to participate in this protest I urge you to not protest in front of MLA, it will only hurt the students that are there currently.