Students in Northern Virginia walked out of school on Thursday to call for action following a shooting that killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers in Texas this week, and more are planning to walk out again.
They joined students across the U.S. who also walked out, calling for lawmakers to do more to protect them from gun violence.
Students Demand Action, a group that raises awareness on gun safety issues and solutions, announced a call to organize a walkout.
Students at McLean High School in McLean and Meridian High School in Falls Church were among those who participated.
More than 100 McLean High School students chanted “Are we next?” and “How many more?” new partner NBC Washington reported. Organizer Bennett Brunner told NBC Washington that the students wanted to promote social change and said the lesson to be learned isn’t for students but for legislators.
“Change is coming, and they really need to include new platforms as mass shootings have been rampant across 2021 and 2022,” Brunner said.
Watch NBC Washington’s coverage of the student walkout.
Students at Oxford High School in Michigan, where four people were killed in November, also walked out Thursday, forming a “U” on the football field to show support for Uvalde, Texas, victims and their families, The Associated Press reported.
On Friday, students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County are also planning to walk out.
March for Our Lives, the student-led movement founded after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, said that it would hold a march on June 11 in D.C. It’s the group’s second march since 2018, when it was founded.
Following the school shooting in Texas, several school systems in the D.C. area said that they were ramping up their security out of an abundance of caution. However, before schools announced the increase in security, a Maryland man is accused of threatening mass violence toward an elementary school and a business.
Recently, a Prince George’s County, Maryland, high school went into lockdown Thursday after a student brought parts of a ghost gun into a classroom.
