Photos by Evelyn Tamminga
A “walkout” is a controversial form of protest in which students walk out of their classes in order to make a visible statement against an urgent issue. Walkouts in the United States have been seen throughout history, from 1968 in which Mexican American students in Los Angeles walked out to protest discrimination in the education system all the way to 2018, where a nationwide walkout was staged by high school students to protest gun violence following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. On Friday, September 4 at noon, over 200 schools across Colorado participated in a coordinated walkout to protest unlawful actions taken by ICE, Heritage included.
While the event was statewide, high school students closer to the Denver area gathered for a larger demonstration at La-Alma Lincoln Park at noon, with some students marching over an hour to the park. For Heritage specifically, students walked all the way from the school to the intersection of Broadway and Ridge, right next to Andy’s Custard, spanning 1.3 miles with students carrying signs and chanting the entire way. This form of protest was supported by Heritage administration, with Principal Stacey Reindeau issuing a letter to Heritage families the day before to say, “LPS has long supported our students’ right to express their views and opinions, which can take different forms such as walkouts or demonstrations…Peaceful protest and freedom of expression are pillars of civic engagement, and we know that it is important that students feel seen and heard.”
Anne-Sophie Pouiller ’27 was one of the students leading the march, claiming that she was present in the walkout that day because “ICE has been doing unlawful things like racial profiling. They’ve been destroying communities and families and should be abolished because it’s not being used properly.”
For a more specific reason to protest, Avlyn Weathers ’28 said, “They are trying to put another ICE facility in Colorado, and we don’t want that.” Weathers is not only referring to the existing ICE detention facility in Aurora sponsored by the GEO group—which has been under fire by the Colorado Department of Health and Education for a tuberculosis case—but also the proposal for a new facility to be built in Northeast Denver in the empty Big Horn prison.
The usage of the First Amendment’s right to peacefully protest has long since been used as a method to provoke change, and Heritage students are not the exception. The walkout gathered many students from multiple grades and was an example of what organization among high school students can look like when effort is put in.