A third to a half of Palmer High School’s 1,650 students walked out of class at 10 a.m. Wednesday to honor students killed in a Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Fla., and call for gun reform and an end to school violence.

Students, parents and other community supporters held signs saying “Protect Kids Not Guns,” “Enough!” and other messages, as part of a nationwide protest issued by the Women’s March Youth EMPOWER group.

“The adults aren’t doing anything; that’s why the kids are taking charge, and I’m glad they are,” said Ruth Roland, whose daughter is a junior at Palmer High.

Many cars driving by the intersection of Nevada and Platte avenues honked in approval.

John Crandall left his Old Town Bike Shop south of downtown to attend the rally, one of the largest in the region.

“This kind of action is long overdue,” he said. “I hope that the Florida shooting is a threshold event that awakens the whole country. I’m excited the kids are leading the way.”

School violence has become the norm, not the exception, said 17-year-old Tuesday Doyle, an organizer of Palmer’s walkout.

“We need to change the message that violence is a way to solve things and that it’s OK,” she said.

Students stayed outside for 17 minutes, one minute for each life lost in the South Florida shooting. Wednesday marked the one-month anniversary.

Not enough has been done since the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton in 1999, say members of the generation who weren’t yet born when Columbine occurred and for whom shelter-in-place drills have become more frequent than fire drills.

“It’s been 19 years next month since Columbine, and it just happened again in Florida,” said Palmer junior Eric Ingram. “The message we’re trying to send today is there’s always a next step, there’s always something we can do. We have a voice – let’s use it.”

Palmer senior Andrew Ruse was among the students who chose to stay in class.

“I didn’t think the protesting was going to solve anything,” he said while on lunch break. “I was working on a lab I didn’t want to miss.”

Andrew, 18, is a legal gun owner, who advocates for “a happy medium in regulating gun control.”

“I knew people were going to walk out, and I respected everyone,” he said. “I hope they respect my views.”

Student LeRoy Johnson defines himself as “pro-gun” and said he didn’t want to support the walkout because it seemed to be all about gun control. “It’s not what I believe in,” he said.

Student Brian Barron, 16, said he while he supports some increased regulation, such as stricter background checks and a ban on extended clips, he decided to stay in class.

Because the walkouts had political overtones, they were not school sanctioned but were tolerated by administration, with a tardy or unexcused absence the most discipline students could face.

Mary Raymond, a special education teacher at Palmer, joined the students standing outside the school.

“These kids have opinions and dreams and they need to be able to say what’s important to them,” Raymond said.

Some students were afraid to leave class, Tuesday said, as rumors circulated among students that a shooting was going to happen during the protest.

“There’s been lots of threats at our school – two last week – and people are worried,” she said.

“It’s always in the back of our minds,” Eric said.

But actions were peaceful Wednesday in the Pikes Peak region. At most schools in the area, the events were contained to school property – a courtyard, a football field or a parking lot – so administrators and security could more carefully monitor the events.

During the Palmer walkout, a drone owned by Colorado Springs School District 11 to record events buzzed overhead.

Colorado Springs Police Sgt. Lisa Cintron, who supervises police assigned to schools within the city, said there were no issues reported during the walkout.

However, a report of juvenile with a gun before school started Wednesday near Harrison High resulted in a school lockout.

In Woodland Park School District RE-2, where a credible threat closed school for two days earlier this month, 100 high school students left classes Wednesday and gathered in the parking lot, said spokeswoman Stacy Schubloom. One student spoke and read the names of victims in the Florida shooting, and students formed a circle and stood in silence.

Members of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, a national organization advocating for gun reform, stood outside Cheyenne Mountain High School Wednesday morning wearing red shirts with their names, as students participated in a walkout.

“The adults in this country should be ashamed that the children need to protect themselves in a civilized country,” said member Brenda Krause.

The local chapter had nine members before the Parkland, Fla., shooting and has 150 now, said Janet Gray, social media manager.

“Today, shows our students that we support their efforts to keep themselves safe,” she said. “They are our future.”

Students at Sproul and Janitell junior high schools in Widefield School District 3 encouraged doing 17 acts of kindness to honor the victims. The student-led efforts encouraged students to be kind to each other and reach out to students they didn’t know.

Students at Watson Junior High in D-3 walked to the football field and observed 17 seconds of silence before reading the names of the Florida victims and releasing balloons.

Demonstrators at Palmer High chanted, “Not one more.”

“I hope that they’re seeing that kids are taking a stand against not wanting to be afraid in school anymore,” said Chris Gard, 16, a sophomore. “There are some days I’m kind of scared to come to school because I’m worried if today’s going to be the day I’m going to end up the next statistic.”

Chris said that watching the shooting a month ago in Florida was horrifying.

“Honestly, I started crying a little bit,” he said. “The school is a community of people. And that community there got torn apart by someone coming there and shooting everyone.

“And it made me sad. And it made me scared, too. Because it’s like what if that happens here? What if all my friends and all of my community here have the same thing happen?”

Gazette reporters Tony Peck and Jakob Rodgers contributed to this article.