Woodrow Wilson High School students walk out at noon April 5 to protest gun violence. Photo by Renee Umsted.
Hundreds of students at Woodrow Wilson High School walked out Wednesday afternoon to protest gun violence.
The protest was in line with a national walk out organized by Students Demand Action. The group formed in 2018, following the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
While the protest was not organized by Dallas ISD, the district respected the students’ right to participate in it.
Executive Director Danielle Petters, who was on campus for the protest, said when the district learned that students planned to participate, procedures were put in place to keep students safe.
Students made signs with messages including “end gun violence,” “protect people not guns,” “leave our schools alone” and “an assault on our future.”
Some students also chanted, “kids over guns.”
The protest, which began at noon, lasted about 20 minutes.
Dallas ISD has not been immune to school shootings. Last month, a student at Thomas Jefferson High School was shot and injured. That was just one day after a shooting at Lamar High School in Arlington that left one student injured and another killed.
But guns and violence have been concerns at and near Woodrow, too. One day in February 2022, Dallas Police officers retrieved two weapons near campus during an investigation into a disturbance call, where they saw people fighting. Another day that month, an “altercation involving students and parents at Willis Winters Park,” which neighbors the campus, drew multiple police cars and an ambulance.
A month later, gun shots were fired outside campus around the time of school dismissal. Then-Superintendent Michael Hinojosa and several other district leaders visited campus the next day, addressing the recent incidents.
