More than 1,100 students who attend four schools in the Oklahoma City district walked out of their classes Monday morning to protest budget cuts that have caused teacher layoffs and program reductions.

Some of those students took their protests to the state Capitol and then to Monday night's school board meeting, where about a dozen students walked silently through a financial update holding signs saying "Don't cut my future.”

Earlier in the day, an estimated 600 students walked out of U.S. Grant High School in south Oklahoma City to protest the cuts, Principal Greg Frederick said.

"Students have free will, and we're not going to chain the doors," Frederick said. "I would prefer that they exercise their rights to assemble not during school time; I absolutely want them to be in class right now."