Parents, students return to Uvalde schools months after mass shooting
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The sun sets at Robb Elementary School on Aug. 24 in Uvalde, Texas. Photo: Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images
Multiple schools across the Uvalde School District opened this week, months after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead last spring.
The big picture: Robb Elementary, the scene of the horrific shooting, remains permanently closed.
- "We're not going back to that campus," Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said last spring, per Axios.
- "We have plans for it to become something other than a school site,” Harrell said.
Driving the news: Parents brought their children to schools in the Uvalde School District this week as doors opened for the 2022-23 school year, the Associated Press reports.
- Parents pushed the district to adopt virtual learning after the Robb Elementary shooting, the Washington Post reports.
- Other parents sought out new schools for their children in the nearby Knippa, La Pryor and Sabinal districts because teachers there can receive handgun training.
What they're saying: “I don’t want to raise them feeling secluded or isolated or raise them in a way that they don’t know how to handle their fears or their anxieties,” parent Marcela Cabralez told Washington Post. “So, you’re caught kind of in this place. What do I do? You know, am I doing what’s right?”
State of play: The Texas Department of Safety placed close to three dozen state troopers across schools in the district as a matter of security, Axios' Sareen Habeshian writes.
- Texas students and school staff have been encouraged to wear white and maroon to show support for Uvalde, according to Spectrum News.
- Parents at a school board meeting last week criticized the Uvalde district's new safety plan, The Texas Tribune reports.
- There's also been criticism because some officers involved in the failed response to the mass shooting will be on duty as the school year begins.
Uvalde Elementary opened early Tuesday with a new 8-foot metal fence around the campus and a state trooper as security at the front of the building, AP reports.
- The school welcomed students who were second and third graders at Robb last year.
Dalton Elementary will welcome second-grade students who were first graders at Robb Elementary, per CNN.
- The school also has an 8-foot metal fence for security, per the Texas Tribune.
Sacred Heart Catholic School had double the enrollment for elementary school students compared to last year, CNN reports.
- 30 students from Robb Elementary received scholarships to attend the private school.
Flores Elementary welcomed back fifth- and sixth-grade students from Robb Elementary, KENS-5 reports.
Go deeper: Uvalde school district to add officers on campuses following mass shooting
