Boulder High School students join state, national walkout over gun violence

Dozens of students at Boulder High School participated in a state and national walkout on Wednesday to raise awareness of gun violence in schools and push for the passage of gun safety laws.

Sophomore Alex Berk said the goal of the walkout was to get attention from lawmakers about the issue of school shootings.

“We don’t want to be killed. We don’t want to be a face in the newspaper,” Berk said. “So, it’s important we show the people who don’t go to school that this is something serious that we think about.”

More than 20 schools in Colorado and 200 schools nationwide participated in the walkouts organized by youth gun safety advocates with Students Demand Action in Colorado, part of the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety.

“We shouldn’t be afraid to go to school and get killed,” sophomore Eliana Monahan said. “We had a scare a few months ago where we thought there was going to be a school shooting . . . and that shouldn’t be a fear that we have, that our friends and teachers are gonna get shot.”

Boulder High School was put on lockdown and then evacuated on Feb. 22 due to a threat of an active shooter that may be connected to a statewide hoax which affected several Colorado schools. Another threat on March 1 put the school on secure status for approximately 15 minutes, where classes continue but the doors to the school are locked, until police established there was no threat.

The threats appeared to be instances of “swatting,” in which a caller reports a false emergency to get police to respond to a location.

Boulder High students also attend school just a few miles from the site of a mass shooting which claimed 10 lives March 22, 2021 at the King Soopers grocery on Table Mesa in south Boulder.

Sophomore Joseph Heerema said the recent scares of school shootings at Boulder High School have taken a toll on students.

“The situation here was definitely real for a lot of people, and it’s taken a serious toll on people’s mental health,” Heerema said. “I know a few friends who were pretty disturbed and pretty worried for weeks afterwards.”

Sophomore Suri West also said the students have been “terrified” and full of “fear” of the threat of a school shooting. She said she hopes legislators will see and hear the students.

“I think putting a face to all of this trauma and hurt that it’s causing will get the attention of the legislators who are in charge of the decisions that are affecting our futures, and if we even have a future,” West said.

Students in the walkout marched from campus to Pearl Street down to the the Boulder County Courthouse with signs and chants. Chants like “Safe kids, new laws,” “Kids before guns” and “hey, hey NRA, how many kids did you kill today,” echoed against the buildings of each side of the Pearl Street Mall.

Monahan said she hopes the walkout will get student voices heard at the governmental level.

“If we don’t yell and have our voices out there, then they (government officials) are going to care even less and there won’t be any pressure on them to do anything,” Monahan said.

Freshman Joli Ray said she worries what would happen if there was a school shooting and what she’d do if it happened to a friend, herself or a teacher.

“There’s been way too many school shootings, and I feel like we should feel safe in our schools instead of worrying everyday if we’re gonna make it out,” said first-year Joli Ray.

At Longmont’s Skyline High School, around 30 students gathered at noon to walk around the school, after which they stood on the front steps of the building for roughly half an hour. The walkout happened during the students’ lunch period, but protesters said they left class 10 minutes early.

“We’re protesting state gun rights, because you are able to carry a gun at any age in Colorado, and you are able to buy almost any gun at 18,” said sophomore Benji Archer. “And there are still many seniors in high school that are 18.”

A few protesters also held handmade signs with slogans like, “21st Century Guns, 18th Century Laws,” “Graduation Not Funerals,” and “Protect Kids, Not Guns.”

“I think people don’t understand how big of an issue this is, how many lockouts and lockdowns there are every single week in high school,” Archer said.

The walkouts were a response, in part, to the March 27 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., that left three children and three adults dead.

Other participating local high schools on Wednesday in both the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts included Fairview High School, Manhattan Middle School, Centennial Middle School, Broomfield High School, Niwot High School, Silver Creek High School, Erie High School, Lyons Middle School, among others.

“We need change and we need safety, and until we get that, we’re not going to back down,” West said.

Staff writer Dana Cadey contributed to this report.