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Columbine High School is a secondary school located at 6201 South Pierce Street in Jefferson County, near Littleton, Colorado with a ZIP code of 80123.
The school was named after the state flower of Colorado, the columbine. Its first graduating class was the class of 1975, as there was no senior class its first year. Gerald Difford was its first principal.
The school is part of the Jefferson County Public Schools district. The school handles grades nine through twelve. The school is adjacent to the Robert F. Clement Park.
On April 20, 1999, the Columbine High School massacre occurred at the school, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and one teacher, and injured 23 other students and teachers. The perpetrators then committed suicide.
After the shooting, classes at Columbine were held at Chatfield High School, also located near Littleton, Colorado, for the rest of the year. Some students who went to Columbine were too traumatized to come back to the school.
Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine,takes its title from the school's name, is a documentary focusing on the correlation between guns and gun violence. The documentary does not exclusively focus on the Columbine school shooting, but includes it as evidence of the ready-availabilty of weapons in the United States.
Ironically, in scientific taxonomy, the order Columbiformes includes the 308 species of doves, hence the adjective columbine refers to something being dove-like.
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