Students at three St. Louis public schools walked out of class Friday afternoon to protest gun violence.
The walkouts happened at Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and McKinley Classical Leadership Academy. They were part of a nationwide walkout movement a week after a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.
A gunman killed an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old student at the school. There were 21 other people injured in the shooting, 18 of whom are children.
Collegiate and CVPA were the site of a school shooting almost three years ago.
Students held signs criticizing how lawmakers haven’t prioritized gun control and have instead focused on cellphone policies. Gov. Mike Kehoe approved legislation this summer that requires districts to create cellphone policies that prohibit phone use during classes, meals and between classes, except for emergencies.
“Our government should be focusing on eliminating gun violence instead of the plethora of things that they have been working on,” Collegiate junior Lilyana Gumenik said. “I think that this is such a pressing issue, and it has been affecting our community for years, and it has only gotten worse.”
A spokesperson for St. Louis Public Schools said the school district worked with student leaders from each of the schools to organize a safe protest.
Collegiate Principal Frederick Steele said a senior approached him a few days ago with the idea to lead the protest as part of the national walkout.
“I love that it's student-led, and I knew that she had a lot of students behind her wanting to do the same thing,” Steele said.
October marks three years since a 19-year-old former CVPA student shot and killed two people and injured seven others on the shared CVPA and Collegiate high school campus. Physical education teacher Jean Kuczka and sophomore Alexzandria Bell were killed. Police shot and killed the gunman after he barricaded himself in a classroom.
“Everyone was changed that day, staff and students in particular,” Steele, the principal, said.
Steele said trained trauma therapists and other professionals have helped students and teachers cope with the aftermath of the attack.
Collegiate freshman Ann Schafer said she appreciated the support from teachers and staff.
She also criticized legal efforts to ban phones from classrooms.
“I want our president, our government, and not just Missouri but in the entire nation, to protect us, the kids, not the guns, and not banning our only communication device with our parents when an unfortunate situation like the CVPA shooting happened,” Schafer said. “I don't want anyone here or anywhere across the nation to get their lives lost because of a gun.”
