School shootings leave parents on edge as classrooms reopen
As parents prepare to send their children back to school across the country three months after the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, many fear for their kids' safety.
According to a poll taken by CBS following the Uvalde shooting, 2 in 3 American parents are concerned about the possibility of gun violence at their children's school.
A Texas mother who lives just hours from where the Uvalde school shooting took place recently sent her first grader back to the classroom. “I was holding her so tight, and I didn't want to let her go to school anymore. That was my first feeling, that I don't want to let her go,” the mother, who requested anonymity, told Yahoo News.
The mother said she knows several parents who have decided to homeschool their children because of the frequency of school shootings in the U.S. “And their only reason was this: that we don't know when a shooting is going to happen in our school,” she recalled. “My option is always school and not homeschooling. But on the other hand, some days I think, what if something happens to her? How am I going to forgive myself for that?”
After the Uvalde massacre, the Uvalde Foundation for Kids was created to address violence in the community. “This particular shooting was a wake-up call for so many people because it's sad that it happens, period, but when it happens to such young children in such a remarkable way, as this happened, I think it really hit home,” Daniel Chapin, the president of the foundation, told Yahoo News.
Chapin was a first responder during the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., which left 13 people dead and more than a dozen others wounded. Chapin says parents' concerns are nothing new.
“We have these incidents, and then they end and then we seem to go about our business. But parents have been concerned for a long, long time. ... We've got parents from Sandy Hook, parents from Columbine, parents from here in Uvalde. That will not and have not stopped. They are concerned because these are their babies. These are their children,” Chapin said.
Max Schachter is one of many parents who are still fighting for school safety. Schachter’s 14-year-old son Alex was killed during the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February 2018. A total of 17 people lost their lives when a gunman entered the school with an AR-15.
Schachter understands firsthand why parents are concerned about school shootings and their children's safety. “I completely understand it; they should be afraid,” he said. “For all the families in Uvalde, it's extremely infuriating for me and for the 17 families in Parkland. You know, we thought, we hoped that this would never happen again.”
After Schachter's son was killed, he dedicated his life to school safety and created Safe Schools for Alex, an organization that provides resources for students, parents and law enforcement. “That's my mission. That's why I travel around the country. ... I speak about the lessons that we learned in Parkland, I talk about what happened, but it's complacency. They never thought it was going to happen in Uvalde. But it did,” Schachter said.
A few months after Parkland, tragedy struck at Forest High School in Ocala, Fla.
In April 2018, "a former student walked onto campus and opened fire in a hallway, shooting through a classroom door and severely injuring one student before his gun jammed and ended the attack,” Elizabeth Brown, the former principal of Forest High School, told Yahoo News. “And we believe he had enough ammo that the attack could have been extremely severe.”
Brown was appointed principal 45 days after the shooting. She said the culture of the school changed and parents were more concerned than ever before.
“I absolutely had parents that were very concerned, and what I found works best was personal, transparent communication. Get in there, visit with them and invite them to come talk to you. Answer their questions,” Brown explained. “It does not surprise me that parents who have not had an event at their school are still concerned about school safety. And school leaders need to turn that into a positive conversation.”
