Students in Southwest Florida will participate in a nationwide walkout on Wednesday to raise awareness about safety in schools.

In some school districts, students who choose to walk out for the 17-minute protest could be punished for participating.

WINK News reporter Jessica Alpern visited several high schools to discuss the walkout with students. Watch the full segment above.

From Maine to Hawaii, students planned to walk out of school Wednesday to protest gun violence in the biggest demonstration yet of the student activism that has emerged in response to last month’s massacre of 17 people at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

In nearly 3,000 protests nationwide, students from the elementary to college level are taking up the call in a variety of ways. Some planned roadside rallies to honor shooting victims and protest violence. Others were to hold demonstrations in school gyms or on football fields. In Massachusetts and Georgia and Ohio, students said they’ll head to the statehouse to lobby for new gun regulations.

The coordinated walkouts were loosely organized by Empower, the youth wing of the Women’s March, which brought thousands to Washington, D.C., last year. The group urged students to leave class at 10 a.m. local time for 17 minutes — one minute for each victim in the Florida shooting — and suggested demands for lawmakers, including an assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun sales.

“Our elected officials must do more than tweet thoughts and prayers in response to this violence,” the group said on its website.

But each community was urged to shape its own protests, and while parents and teachers in many districts worked together to organize age-appropriate activities, school administrators had mixed reactions. Some have applauded students for taking a stand, while others threatened discipline.

Districts in Sayreville, New Jersey, and Maryland’s Harford County drew criticism this week when they said students could face punishment for leaving class. In Pensacola, Florida, Superintendent Malcolm Thomas ordered students to hold an in-school assembly instead, telling them they could discuss voting and mental health issues, but not guns, and saying that political banners would not be allowed.

“You can’t make political statements, it can’t be a pro-gun or anti-gun assembly,” Thomas told the Pensacola News-Journal.

The American Civil Liberties Union issued advice for students, saying schools can’t legally punish them more harshly because of the political nature of their message. In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Texas, some lawyers said they will provide free legal help to students who are punished. The ACLU of Georgia’s guidance letters to districts said “The United States Supreme Court has long held that students do not ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate’.”

This nationwide action is one of several protests planned for coming weeks. The March for Our Lives rally for school safety is expected to draw hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital on March 24, its organizers said. And another round of school walkouts is planned for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado.

After the walkout Wednesday, some students in Massachusetts say they plan to rally outside the Springfield headquarters of Smith & Wesson, where students and religious leaders are expected to call on the gun maker to help reduce gun violence.

At Case Elementary School in Akron, Ohio, a group of fifth-graders organized a walkout with the help of teachers after seeing parallels in a video they watched about youth marches for civil rights in 1963. Case instructors said 150 or more students will line a sidewalk along a nearby road, carrying posters with the names of Parkland victims.

The walkouts have drawn support from companies including media conglomerate Viacom, which said it will pause programming on MTV, BET and all its other networks for 17 minutes during the walkouts, and allow students to temporarily take over MTV’s social media accounts.

In suburban Atlanta, one of Georgia’s largest school systems announced that students who participate might face unspecified consequences.

But some vowed to walk out anyway, understanding that accepting punishments is part of what can make civil disobedience powerful.

“Change never happens without backlash,” said Kara Litwin, a senior at Pope High School in the Cobb County School District.

The possibility of being suspended “is overwhelming, and I understand that it’s scary for a lot of students,” said Lian Kleinman, a junior at Pope High. “For me personally this is something I believe in, this is something I will go to the ends of the Earth for.”

Other schools sought a middle ground, offering “teach-ins” or group discussions on gun violence and working to keep things safe. Officials at Boston Public Schools said they arranged a day of observance Wednesday with a variety of activities “to provide healthy and safe opportunities for students to express their views, feelings and concerns.” Students who don’t want to participate could bring a note from a parent to opt out.

Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report. Follow Binkley on Twitter at @cbinkley </s> PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) – At schools across the country, students participated in a walkout to protest gun violence.

It’s the biggest demonstration yet of the student activism that’s emerged following the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last month.

Students at the high school walked out at 10 a.m. and planned to stay out for 17 minutes, one for each victim of the shooting.

In an online livestream, David Hogg, a senior at the school who’s become one of the public faces of protests against gun violence, criticized politicians for not doing more as he walked amid a mass of people.

More than 30 Pittsburgh-area schools were expected to participate in the walkout.

Meanwhile, Moon Area High School will be spending their morning writing letters to their lawmakers, asking for change and more mental health professionals in schools.

In Washington, D.C., thousands of students gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, holding colorful signs and cheering in support of gun control.

The students chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho. The NRA has got to go!” and “What do we want? Gun control! When do we want it? Now!”

President Donald Trump was traveling in Los Angeles and was not in the White House during the demonstrations.

The protests have drawn mixed reactions from school administrators. While some applaud students for taking a stand, others threatened discipline.

Stay With KDKA.com For More Details </s> More than 30 students, faculty and community residents participated in the “Enough: National School Walkout” Wednesday morning.

The crowd gathered at the Bell Tower at 10 a.m. for 17 minutes to remember the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and to protest gun violence in schools.

The walkout took place exactly one month after the Parkland school shooting where a former student killed 17 students and faculty on Feb. 14. It is one of the deadliest school shootings since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Philadelphia Students Demand Action, a Philadelphia-based grassroots organization created after the Parkland school shooting, organized the walkout at Temple.

Philadelphia high school students also participated in the national walkout, which was organized by the Women’s March Youth Empower to protest Congress’ inaction toward gun control reform, according to its website.

3,100 schools said its students and faculty would participate in the walkout on Wednesday, NBC reported.

“We are here today to bring awareness to the fact that everyday lives are lost to gun violence, and that it’s time for us to do something,” said Christen Rexing, a professor in the College of Public Health. “We want to ride the momentum that the students started in Florida and make it a Pennsylvania issue and a national issue.”

Temple’s Harrisburg Campus announced on Twitter that it would be “symbolically closed” from 10 a.m. to 10:17 a.m. to recognize those participating in Wednesday’s protest.

Earlier this month, Temple announced that prospective students’ participation in peaceful protests, like the national walkout, will not affect their admission to the university. Some high school students faced disciplinary action if they chose to participate in these protests.

Students, faculty, and community residents expressed their concerns with the national government’s response to school shootings and gun control.

“By participating in the walkout, this is the first thing we can do to making a change with gun control,” said Gaby Combs, a junior public health major. “It’s ridiculous, and to see the government not do anything, they’re complacent and have blood on their hands.”

Keith Wert, a former New Jersey teacher and resident of Gloucester County, New Jersey, drove to Temple from his home to show his support.

“I hope that this is the beginning of a movement,” Wert said. “As a father, I could never imagine my kids being in a situation like the [Parkland] shooting.”

“I feel very strongly about this,” he added. “I’m here to support these kids, and put the pressure on people to do something about this. I hope the young people, with all their energy, keep at it and keep pushing because this is just ridiculous to the point of being absurd.”

Peter Ditzler, a freshman film and media arts major, said he hopes the government can start introducing legislation to increase background checks and implement age restrictions for buying semiautomatic rifles like an AR-15 rifle, which was used by the gunman in Parkland.

“I’m here to take action against the epidemic of gun violence in this country,” Ditzler said. “Everytime I see a headline about a mass shooting, it breaks my heart, especially when it comes down to school kids, like the Sandy Hook shooting.” </s> Students across the United States walked out of classes on Wednesday in a nationwide call for action against gun violence following the shooting deaths last month at a Florida high school.

Hundreds of students from Washington area schools gathered outside the White House chanting "Never again!" and "Enough is enough!" and holding signs reading "Protect People Not Guns."

At 10:00 am (1400 GMT), students in numerous cities held a moment of silence to honor the 14 students and three adult staff killed on Valentine's Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The "National School Walkout" was intended to last for 17 minutes, one for each victim.

But it quickly became apparent that many students at schools on the East Coast decided not to go to classes at all and to demonstrate instead.

The nationwide protest is being held one month to the day after Nikolas Cruz, a troubled 19-year-old former student at Stoneman Douglas, unleashed a hail of gunfire on his former classmates.

The event to honor those slain at Stoneman Douglas is also an act of protest against the firearms violence plaguing the United States, which has more than 30,000 gun-related deaths annually.

Organizers come from the same group behind the Women's March, which saw millions of demonstrators take to the streets in cities across the country in January 2017 to protest Donald Trump's White House inauguration.

Trump had momentarily signaled support for increasing restrictions on guns, but now stands accused of bowing to the powerful US gun lobby. </s> LITTLETON, Colo., (Reuters) – Demanding an end to gun violence and tougher restrictions on firearm sales, thousands of students again walked out of classes across the United States on Friday in hopes of putting pressure on politicians ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Timed to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, students left classes at midmorning, many waving placards with slogans including “I should be worried about grades, not guns,” and “Enough is enough.”

Organizers said students from more than 2,600 schools and institutions were scheduled to take part, but that was fewer than participated in a similar walkout last month. In some places, demonstrators even met with resistance from school administrators.

“Today is about being proactive and being empowered and really funneling all that energy and anger we have as young people into some productive change,” one of the student organizers, Lane Murdock of Connecticut, told Reuters.

Olivia Pfeil, a 16-year-old sophomore from a high school in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, held a sign bearing the names of mass shooting victims. “We’re expecting change or come next election cycle we will support politicians who are listening to the voices of the youth,” she said.

It was the second student walkout since the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the emergence of a national student movement to end gun violence and toughen restrictions on firearms sales.

Many of the demonstrators wore orange, a color that has come to represent the movement against gun violence. A 13-second silence was observed in honor of the 13 killed at Columbine.

At the Texas statehouse in Austin, about 1,000 students, many waving signs and chanting anti-NRA slogans, demanded stricter gun control measures.

“Because we can’t vote, this is the only way we can make our voices heard,” said Graeclyn Garza, a second-year student at McCallum High School in Austin, who waved a sign reading “Enough.”

Outside the White House, protesters sat in silence while they listened to the names of gun violence victims read aloud.

“It happened like 20 years ago,” said Ayanna Rhodes, 14, a student at Washington International School, referring to Columbine, “And we are still getting mass shootings in schools.”

Two gunman went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, leaving 12 students and a teacher dead before killing themselves in a massacre that stunned the nation. But since then, school shootings have become commonplace.

Even as students prepared for their protest on Friday morning, news broke that a 17-year-old student had been wounded in a shooting at a high school near Ocala, Florida. A suspect was arrested soon afterward, police said.

The latest gun violence unfolded about 225 miles (360 km)northwest of the Parkland high school, where two months ago a former student killed 17 people in the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.

Despite widespread revulsion over the school shootings, the issue of gun control remains sensitive in Colorado and across the country, where the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.

Dudley Brown, president of the Colorado-based National Association for Gun Rights, said the gun-control movement seeks to have the government take away constitutional rights.

“The main objective of these students is to ban firearms completely, and confiscate the firearms of law-abiding Americans,” Brown said. “We will oppose them at every step.”

In some conservative school districts, administrators told students they could face disciplinary steps if they walked out.

In suburban Dallas, a dozen students dressed in orange chanted “End gun violence!” as they huddled in a parking lot across the street from North Garland High School.

Freshman Victoria Fierro, 14, said school administrators blocked the doors when about 50 students tried to leave, so a small group exited through a side door.

“They told us we would get in trouble if we walk out, and we told them it was a peaceful protest, we’re not causing any damage,” Fierro said. “This is over a serious topic that people are pushing aside.”

The principal declined to answer questions from Reuters.

It was not immediately clear whether Friday’s turnout matched those of earlier protests. More than a month ago, tens of thousands of students from some 3,000 schools participated in the #ENOUGH National School Walkout to demand tighter gun control regulations.

On March 24, “March For Our Lives” rallies in cities across the United States were some of the biggest U.S. youth demonstrations in decades, with hundreds of thousands of young Americans and their supporters taking to the streets.

On the evening before the walk-outs, Colorado gun control activists rallied near Columbine High School.

Carlos Rodriguez, a 17-year-old junior from Marjory Stoneman, traveled to Columbine for the anniversary and said he found a sense of solidarity in the outpouring of support.

“That’s the only thing that’s keeping us Douglas students alive right now: the distraction of fighting for our rights and advocating for our lives,” Rodriguez told Reuters.

There was no walkout on Friday at Columbine, which has not held classes on April 20 since the massacre. Students were encouraged to take part in community service instead. </s> Thousands of students walked out of classrooms nationwide Wednesday to protest gun violence and call for new gun control measures on the one month anniversary of the Parkland school shooting that left 17 dead and sparked a grassroots wave of activism.

From Maine to Hawaii, students left school to demonstrate against gun violence in what could be the biggest display yet of the student activism that has emerged in response to last month’s massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

In nearly 3,000 protests nationwide, students from the elementary to college level took up the call in a variety of ways. Some took part in roadside rallies to honor shooting victims and protest violence. Others held demonstrations in school gyms or on football fields. In Massachusetts and Georgia and Ohio, students went to the statehouse to lobby for new gun regulations.

The coordinated walkouts were loosely organized by Empower, the youth wing of the Women’s March, which brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to Washington, D.C., last year. The group urged students to leave class at 10 a.m. local time for 17 minutes — one minute for each victim in the Florida shooting — and suggested demands for lawmakers, including an assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun sales.

“Our elected officials must do more than tweet thoughts and prayers in response to this violence,” the group said on its website.

Students spoke out about why they chose to leave class.

Amanya Paige, 16, a junior at Parkdale High School in Prince George’s County, told the Washington Post that many schools in her district are participating in on-campus walkouts “to pay our respects and to show that the student voice matters and we won’t stand for the lack of gun control when it comes to school safety. This is where we spend the majority of our time and pray that we are safe every day.”

“Seventeen people are dead and I am no longer willing to listen to politicians who deem my life less valuable than a piece of metal.” — Maya Homan, of Palo Alto, Calif., told the New York Times.

In Parkland, a walkout at Stoneman Douglas is expected to remain within the school’s perimeter, in part for safety reasons, Ashley Schulman, a 17-year-old senior, told the Wall Street Journal.

But each community was urged to shape its own protests, and while parents and teachers in many districts worked together to organize age-appropriate activities, school administrators had mixed reactions. Some have applauded students for taking a stand, while others threatened discipline.

Districts in Sayreville, New Jersey, and Maryland’s Harford County drew criticism this week when they said students could face punishment for leaving class. In Pensacola, Florida, Superintendent Malcolm Thomas ordered students to hold an in-school assembly instead, telling them they could discuss voting and mental health issues, but not guns, and saying that political banners would not be allowed.

“You can’t make political statements, it can’t be a pro-gun or anti-gun assembly,” Thomas told the Pensacola News-Journal.

Free speech advocates are ready for any confrontations.

The American Civil Liberties Union issued advice for students, saying schools can’t legally punish them more harshly because of the political nature of their message. In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Texas, some lawyers said they will provide free legal help to students who are punished. The ACLU of Georgia’s guidance letters to districts said “The United States Supreme Court has long held that students do not ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate’.”

This nationwide action is one of several protests planned for coming weeks. The March for Our Lives rally for school safety is expected to draw hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital on March 24, its organizers said. And another round of school walkouts is planned for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado.

After the walkout Wednesday, some students in Massachusetts say they plan to rally outside the Springfield headquarters of Smith & Wesson, where students and religious leaders are expected to call on the gun maker to help reduce gun violence.

At Case Elementary School in Akron, Ohio, a group of fifth-graders organized a walkout with the help of teachers after seeing parallels in a video they watched about youth marches for civil rights in 1963. Case instructors said 150 or more students will line a sidewalk along a nearby road, carrying posters with the names of Parkland victims.

The walkouts have drawn support from companies including media conglomerate Viacom, which said it will pause programming on MTV, BET and all its other networks for 17 minutes during the walkouts, and allow students to temporarily take over MTV’s social media accounts.

In suburban Atlanta, one of Georgia’s largest school systems announced that students who participate might face unspecified consequences.

But some vowed to walk out anyway, understanding that accepting punishments is part of what can make civil disobedience powerful.

“Change never happens without backlash,” said Kara Litwin, a senior at Pope High School in the Cobb County School District.

The possibility of being suspended “is overwhelming, and I understand that it’s scary for a lot of students,” said Lian Kleinman, a junior at Pope High. “For me personally this is something I believe in, this is something I will go to the ends of the Earth for.”

Other schools sought a middle ground, offering “teach-ins” or group discussions on gun violence and working to keep things safe. Officials at Boston Public Schools said they arranged a day of observance Wednesday with a variety of activities “to provide healthy and safe opportunities for students to express their views, feelings and concerns.” Students who don’t want to participate could bring a note from a parent to opt out.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Students from Douglas Freeman High School walk out of school to participate in a gun violence protest Source: Steve Helber via AP

STUDENTS ACROSS THE United States have walked out of classes today in a nationwide call for action against gun violence following the shooting deaths last month at a Florida high school.

Hundreds of students from Washington area schools gathered outside the White House chanting “Never again!” and “Enough is enough!” and holding signs reading “Protect People Not Guns”.

At 10am, students in numerous cities held a moment of silence to honour the 14 students and three adult staff killed on Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Students bring posters along to a protest in Jersey City, New Jersey Source: Julio Cortez via AP

The “National School Walkout” was intended to last for 17 minutes, one for each victim.

But it quickly became apparent that many students at schools on the East Coast decided not to go to classes at all and to demonstrate instead.

The nationwide protest is being held one month to the day after Nikolas Cruz, a troubled 19-year-old former student at Stoneman Douglas, unleashed a hail of gunfire on his former classmates.

Students from Miami County Day School walk out of their school to protest gun violence Source: Marta Lavandier via AP

The event to honour those slain at Stoneman Douglas is also an act of protest against the firearms violence plaguing the US, which has more than 30,000 gun-related deaths annually.

Organisers come from the same group behind the Women’s March, which saw millions of demonstrators take to the streets in cities across the country in January 2017 to protest Donald Trump’s White House inauguration.

Trump had momentarily signalled support for increasing restrictions on guns, but now stands accused of bowing to the powerful US gun lobby.

Read: Florida brings in new law to restrict gun access, NRA immediately launches legal bid to block it

More: Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz formally charged with 17 counts of murder </s> New York: Students walked out of classrooms across the United States on Wednesday, waving signs and chanting their demands for tighter gun safety laws, joining a movement spearheaded by survivors of the deadly shooting spree at a Florida high school last month.

The #ENOUGH National School Walkout began at 10am with 17-minute walkouts planned at 10am local time in western time zones, commemorating the 17 students and staff killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14.

Some students got in an early start. At Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in New York City, crowds of students poured into the streets of Manhattan, many dressed in orange, the color of the gun-control movement.

"Thoughts and prayers are not enough," read one sign, needling the rote response many lawmakers make after mass shootings.

In Parkland, students slowly filed onto the Stoneman Douglas school football field as law enforcement officers looked on. </s> Students demanding tougher gun laws walked out of classes across the United States on Friday, the 19th anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School which left 13 people dead.

As thousands of teenagers held rallies from coast to coast, a shooting at a high school in Ocala, Florida, left one student wounded.

The Ocala Star Banner newspaper said a 19-year-old former student at Forest High School fired a blast from a shotgun into a locked classroom door, wounding a 17-year-old student in the ankle.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office said the suspect, who was not identified, was quickly arrested.

Around the country, students marked the anniversary of the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine in Colorado, a massacre seen as the harbinger of an era of school violence.

"I feel like things have gotten worse these last few years," said Emma Corcoran, a 15-year-old from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland, at a rally in Washington. "Change needs to happen."

The protests have been galvanized by students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 14 teens and three adult staff members were shot dead on February 14 by a troubled former classmate armed with an AR-15-style automatic weapon.

The Parkland students have spearheaded a grassroots campaign for gun control which included another school walkout on March 14 and nationwide rallies by hundreds of thousands of Americans on March 24.

"So proud of the #NationalSchoolWalkout and all of the students around the country who are standing up for positive change and demanding what we deserve," tweeted Cameron Kasky, a Parkland student leader.
Students throughout the United States participate in a walkout protest against gun violence.