COLO. STUDENTS READY TO JOIN WALKOUT

Students hoping to send message about gun violence with their exodus

High-schoolers are hoping to send a message about gun violence with their exodus from classrooms Wednesday.

Boulder High School junior Alec Eyl will join thousands of other students across the country Wednesday to send a message that gun violence in schools will no longer be tolerated.

Not now and certainly not when he and others his age start going to the polls.

“We will no longer be ignored, and when we become the next generation of voters, we will make our voices heard about guns in this country,” Eyl said. “We will have to be taken seriously.”

As many as 1,965 schools and organizations across the country are scheduled to participate in Wednesday’s #Enough National School Walkout to End Gun Violence organized by Women’s March Youth, the youth activist wing of the Women’s March group.

The walkout was called to remember the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead. The students are asked to walk out of their schools at 10 a.m. and stay outside for 17 minutes, one minute to remember each life lost in the Florida shooting.

Several Colorado schools are scheduled to participate and are doing so with the full knowledge of school officials.

“We just want to make sure the walkouts will be done in an orderly, calm manner that doesn’t cause problems,” said Jefferson County School District spokeswoman Diana Wilson. “We also want to make sure the students’ rights to free speech are allowed.”

Students at Golden High School have decided to move the event to 6 p.m. at the North Area Athletic Complex to avoid disrupting classes. The students will hold a rally featuring student speakers, performers as well as community leaders, Emmy Adams, a senior and organizer of the rally, said Friday.

Tom Mauser, the father of Daniel Mauser, who was among the 13 killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, will speak, Adams said

“The purpose of the rally is to say enough is enough,” Adams said. “It is not political. It’s not anti-gun. It’s anti-solutions that don’t work.”

Adams said the Parkland shooting holds special meaning for schools in the Jefferson County School District, which is home to Columbine.

“We are the school district of Columbine and we don’t seem to have found a way to end school violence,” Adams said.

National walkout organizers say they support an assault-weapons ban and an expansion of background checks for all gun sales and opposition to a nationalizing

of concealed carry laws and efforts to arm teachers.

“It’s time we put pressure on lawmakers locally and nationally for commonsense gun reform across the country,” Paul Gordon, a junior at Arapahoe High School, said Friday.

The Florida shooting also held special meaning at Arapahoe High, where student Claire Davis was fatally shot in 2013 by a student gunman who took his own life.

Plenty of students who otherwise wouldn’t be involved in protesting are taking an interest in the issue of gun violence, Gordon said. “I’ve seen a lot of students, who are suddenly real interested in this and that’s never happened before. I think they realize it’s just a thing that could happen here as well.”

The Parkland shooting could indeed be a “tipping point” when it comes to limiting gun violence in America, a University of Colorado Denver education expert said Friday.

“What I am hearing in my classes is that students are frustrated and they don’t feel as safe as they used to,” Carlos Porfirio HipolitoDelgado said. He prepares secondary school counselors for work in Colorado schools.

Today’s media-savvy students can shine a light on school violence better than past generations, HipolitoDelgado said. “We are seeing these young people in front of the cameras and they are handling themselves well and getting their point across smoothly.”

“And like never before, they are pointing out that people who should be responsible for protecting them, are failing to act,” he said.