PARKLAND, Fla. – Next month will mark six years since the tragic 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, when a shooter armed with an AR-15 style rifle shot and killed 17 staff and students, injuring another 17.
On Monday, a roundtable discussion was held with U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
Parkland school shooting survivors and family members of the murdered told the secretary what they think can be done to combat complacency and turn conversation into action.
Those include measures like bullet-resistant classroom doors, to mental health resources, to dealing with the trauma of bearing witness to tragedy — and by championing the work already done and harnessing lessons learned to export school safety best practices.
“To say this morning was one of the most impactful moments in my life was an understatement,” Cardona said.
Cardona was joined by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency Director Jen Easterly.
They are the two latest at the federal level to take that gripping and heart-wrenching walk through the blood stained hallways of the 1200 building on the MSD campus.
“I’m here to listen and to take back to D.C. lessons you think we should know,” Cardona said.
He listened to family members of the murdered, such as Max Schachter, who lost his son Alex in the shooting and has been leading the effort to get as many federal officials as possible to walk through the building.
“What would happen if we prioritized our schools as critical infrastructure?” Schachter said. “Learn from Parkland so this doesn’t happen to your community, prioritize security over education because you can’t teach dead kids.”
Cardona also listened to Parkland school shooting survivors, like then-student Danielle Gilbert.
“We were like sitting ducks. We are in the classroom, and we had no protection,” Gilbert said. “We didn’t have any panic buttons. When that day occurred, just reacting, no training beforehand to prepare.”
Another survivor, teacher Stacey Lippel, told the secretary that survivors need access to trauma-trained mental health professionals.
“Many of us were left on our own,” she said. “Mental health in the districts is great now, but at the time was deficient. They were not able to handle the severity of our trauma. We were left wondering why is that working with us.”
“A lot of us graduated and were thrown into life after that, no resources provided,” added Gilbert. “Not enough resources for us. Once we left Parkland, it was like fend for yourself.”
Gilbert also offered tangible infrastructure improvements that, based on her experience, could be helpful to add to all schools nationwide.
“Schools need automatic locks, panic buttons,” she said.
Families of the murdered told the secretary during the roundtable discussion also needed nationwide are investments in active shooter response training and bullet resistant classroom doors.
“I know you will be forever be changed by walking through that building, as everyone has been who has gone through,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the shooting. “But what matters is what happens next.”
Families of victims killed in the shooting asked the secretary to promote https://www.schoolsafety.gov/about, which is a warehouse of school safety resources available to all school sites.
“It’s a shame that we have to continue to have to talk about this (school shootings),” Cardona said. “A school lock is no match for an AR-15. I couldn’t tell you the root cause of why it’s happening. There’s a whole host of issues, including in that is the availability of assault weapons made for war in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them, that’s part of the problem. When you can take that many lives in such a short period of time, that is part of the issue, as is the normalization of this.”
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Congressional leaders, Parkland families discuss school safety after tour of 1200 building