Heights High Students Walkout For Stricter Gun Laws [Video]

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH — Temperatures fell below 32 degrees on Wednesday morning and a light flurry of snow descended on Cleveland's east side suburbs. Despite the murky grey overcast and biting winds, in a stadium off of Cedar Road, students from Heights High chanted, "Tell me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" The high schoolers carried signs that said, "It's our lives on the line!" and anti-gun posters.

At Heights Middle School the scene was similar. Students chanted "No more guns!" while braving the winter cold.

Students were taking part in a national walkout movement that saw students from school districts across the nation leave their classrooms and protest outside, in various ways, for stricter gun laws. More than 700 Heights High Tigers wrapped themselves in winter coats, gloves, hats and fiery political rhetoric and marched out of their revamped school building.

The League of Women Voters stationed itself in the Heights High School cafeteria and helped eligible students register to vote.

While district officials for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Schools offered their support, the event was student-led and completely voluntary. "Cleveland Heights has a tradition of student activism," Superintendent Talisa Dixon said in a letter to families before the event.

All of the CHUH Schools took part in some kind of gun violence awareness or prevention event on Wednesday. To learn more about what individual schools did, click here.

Here, in Northeast Ohio, the Heights High protesters were joined by students in Beachwood, Shaker Heights, Lakewood and other districts in walking out or protesting in some way.

"The students [in Parkland] were so similar to the people that we know. It's shocking. I was overwhelmed at first. I felt like it was just going to keep happening and happening, no matter how bad it gets," said Shaker Heights High School senior Rachel Podl, one of the leaders of the walkout. "At a certain point though, you have to ask yourself, "If not me, who?"

To learn more about Shaker Heights' walkout, and see video taken live during that event, click here.

Students at Ballard High School participate in a walkout to address school safety and gun violence on March 14, 2018 in Seattle, Washington. Students across the nation walked out of their classrooms for 17 minutes to show solidarity for the 17 killed in the February 14 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and to make a nationwide appeal for changes in gun laws. (Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)