By Steve Klamkin WPRO News

A couple of hundred students walked out of their Providence area high schools at noontime Thursday, and marched on the office of the Rhode Island Department of Education, calling for an end to school resource officers, and a diversion of the funds toward more school counselors.

Some students marched from Burnside Park downtown, others from the office of the Providence Student Union, near Central and Classical High Schools and Providence Career and Technical Academy, waving signs and chanting, accompanied by police in peaceful processions.

At the Department of Education offices, students used bullhorns to address the crowd.

“We do not need policing,” said one student. “We need accessibility to adequate mental health services. Police are killing children. There are domestic terrorists in our building.”

“Criminalizing our students is not the way to go anymore,” said Classical High School junior Milly Asherov in an interview. “We need to start looking into alternatives to policing and we need to look into school safety teams and things that have worked at so many other schools, and we really need to invest in those solutions.”

Governor Dan McKee said he does not favor doing away with the officers.

“We’re going to make sure that we’re supporting… keeping the SROs in the schools,” he told reporters at a separate event Thursday.