School safety remains top conversation following Luis Garcia's shooting death near Denver East High School
Safety in Colorado schools is at the forefront of conversations — a topic of great concern since 16-year-old Luis Garcia was shot near Denver East High School and died weeks after the shooting and the two faculty members shot March 22nd.
According to Denver Public Schools, 10 guns have been confiscated from students in Denver schools between the start of the school year and February.
Denver School board officials say they're working to ensure they listen to student requests for safety, but it's a state-wide issue that requires legislative action.
Auon'tai Anderson, the Denver School Board Vice President, says Denver public schools doesn't lack security at this point, adding DPS has a department of climate and safety, including 165 individuals who are armed and unarmed safety patrol supporting their schools across the district.
"They help with school discipline, mitigate fights," Anderson said. "We also have an armed division that patrol 24/7."
While this is in place on school grounds, some students have voiced concerns about having more safety measures at their schools, for instance bringing back school resource officers.
DPS says it's open to other solutions, but this won't be one of them.
"We don't need to have physical SROs in buildings in order to keep students safe because we are doing the safety measure more so than other districts by having our own department of climate and safety," Anderson said.
Alexander Cisneros is the vice president of Denver East Students Demand Action. He believes school safety starts with more attention on mental health.
"We need to make sure we have more mental health support and adults that students can form attachments to, one of our panelists said we have to show students that they have people they can talk to," Cisneros said.
DPS says it's committed to making that a solution - investing money into that - but says it's more of statewide issue.
"What we need to do is raise the age for an individual to buy and purchase a gun,: Anderson said. "The legislature is working on that. What we need to do is make sure we ban assault weapons, and what we need to do is expand extreme protection orders, I'm grateful the legislature is working on that."
DPS Board of Education says it's doing its part by listening to students, with hopes that gun safety bills introduced will pass.
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