Coeur d'Alene students organize walkout protest

From coast to coast, students at high schools across the country last week walked out in protest of gun violence.

“For younger generations, this is something that's going to be a fear in their mind every single day, a school is somewhere where they are supposed to feel safe,” Annika Silk said.

Silk and Ashley Romanowski are seniors at Coeur d’Alene High School.

“The smallest noise would freak me out because maybe today is the day or when you walk in the hallways and someone screams a little louder than normal and you think that that's when maybe it's going to happen,” Romanowski said.

Romanowski, Silk, and several others are leading the charge at Coeur d’Alene High.

On March 14, students at high schools across the country will walk out for 17 minutes to make their voices heard.

The pair says it’s to protest Congress' inaction to put an end to the violence.

“Now we are not asking for a gun ban, we want to make that really clear,” Silk said, “This is something that needs to change, and kids are scared to go to school because of it."

Aside from walking out, Romanowski and Silk are planning to have a letter written that’ll include the voices of all students at Coeur d’Alene High that they will send to local representatives.

They also hope that local senators will come to the schools.

“It would be really nice to start a conversation instead of just ‘this happened, oh cool, we're not going to do anything about it’,” Romanowski said, “I'd love to be able to talk to them face to face and have them know that this is how we feel."

KHQ received a statement from the Coeur d’Alene School District saying, “Students around the country plan to walk out of their classrooms on March 14 and possibly additional dates in demonstrations about school violence. Coeur d’Alene Public Schools will allow students and staff members to participate in the demonstrations, recognizing that they have a constitutional right to speak out, assemble peaceably and petition our government for change.  “

“District administrators and School Resource Officers will develop a plan to allow students and staff to exercise their rights, while providing for their safety and minimizing disruption to the educational environment. The district will share more information with families and the community closer to the date of these events."

For more information regarding the walkout, click here.

(story: Adam Mayer, KHQ Local News Reporter; photo: KHQ.com)