PARKLAND, Fla. _ A group of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teachers waved signs Friday morning in front of the school, as part of a day of activism against violence in schools.
Before classes began Friday, about two dozen gathered, holding the signs and chanting as passers-by honked their horns in support.
Friday is the National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools, coinciding with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre. The teachers said they want the support they need to be effective in classrooms, rather than being armed with guns.
Greg Pittman, an American history teacher who has taught at Stoneman Douglas for 11 years, said he doesn't want to be the one deciding whether to shoot a student.
"'The Walking Dead' is not coming tomorrow," he said, referring to a popular TV show about the zombie apocalypse. "We don't need these guns."
Across the nation and the state, 2,400 events are planned, including dozens in South Florida, many of them concentrated around the current epicenter of shock and horror wrought by a semi-automatic weapon: Parkland.
Gunman Nikolas Cruz carried out the mass shooting on Feb. 14 at Stoneman Douglas, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others.
On Friday morning, Sheryl Acquaroli, 16, walked by the protesting teachers in Parkland. The 11th-grader jokingly asked, "Does this mean we have no work today?"
Pittman replied, "Your homework is due what you need to do at 10 a.m."
The teachers had walked out of the school in a line. They mostly all wore orange shirts, the designated color of the day.
Some of their signs read: "Arm me with school funding," "Never again," "End school violence," and "Common sense gun laws! Our lives may depend on them!"
Alex Wind, one of the student activists with the #NeverAgain movement, ran up to the teachers and high-fived them just before everyone filed back into school. He called them, "Our heroes!"
A national day of walkouts already was held in March, but Wind sneered at the idea that one walkout day was sufficient. "We're not going to make an impact if we don't walk out as often as we can," he said.
To the idea students are losing valuable time in class, he said, "what's really damaging our education is these code red drills and getting shot."
The school district is willing to give students the space to walk out to mark the day _ as long as the students stay on campus, to ensure everyone's safety.
Wind said, "If we listened to the adults, the protests would have never happened. It's school walkout day."
