Schools Closed After University of Virginia Shooting: A Parent’s Perspective
A queer family and a school shooting
I see that my child’s co-parent has called my phone at 7:30am and then an automated call from the public school system pops up. I recognize the number. I have a text from a friend with a screenshot of the written statement from the public schools. She says, “Stay safe.” The Charlottesville and Albemarle schools are closed. There has been a shooting at the University of Virginia and three people are dead and two are injured and the shooter, a young person, is at large. UVA’s location is close to public schools. I feel an initial shock and sadness.
I call my co-parent to check in and to talk to my child who is there. Ze is ok, but ze says it’s a lot, “with everything else going on.” My brain can’t land on what exactly the “everything else,” might be. My child is an LGBTQ+ kid and I’m an LGBTQ+ parent and safety at school is always something we consider. Does ze mean Governor Youngkin calling for a reversal of the 2021 Virginia Model Policies that protect trans and non-binary students in schools? Is ze talking about the Virginia school walkouts that happened to protest the reversal of supportive policies? Is ze talking about the LGBTQ+ bullying incident ze personally experienced?
No, the “everything else” my child is talking about are two previous active shooter calls that occurred at the beginning of the school year. The first call had gone to the high school and the next day a second call went to the middle school. Both were eventually discovered to be hoaxes, but the schools responded at the time and issued lockdowns. It wasn’t a practice drill.
My house is in an area that is close to the schools. The morning of the threat to the high school I heard the sirens of firetrucks and my stomach clenched. I had silently hoped they weren’t going to the schools, but I found out that’s exactly where they were headed.
Later, a friend told me that her child had been afraid and that the teacher had stood by the door holding a chair ready to defend the classroom. Another friend said that her child had experienced a panic attack surrounding the event of the lockdown. Both children recovered. I told my friend that a panic attack was understandable and to please give big hugs from us. Our children shouldn’t have to be prepared to save their own lives at school.
It’s amazing to me, that in the wake of the UVA shooting that has just occurred, it took me a moment to remember the hoax active shooter calls in the schools this past September. It’s now November. I want to say that I haven’t had time to process the impact but maybe I just can’t process it.
There’s nothing that makes sense.
Sending your child to school shouldn’t involve wondering if they’ll make it to the end of the day alive. Being a student at college shouldn’t involve losing friends to gun violence. The student now being hunted by police shouldn’t have had access to a gun. If he had been in the same situation, whatever it was, with heightened emotion but no trigger to pull, there might not have been death and injury. The shooter wouldn’t be a shooter and lives could be saved.
One day recently, I was driving my child to an after-school activity, and ze started talking about the lockdowns. Ze asked questions about people having guns and why the schools have to stop people with guns? It’s an ongoing conversation, something that comes up, and I don’t always know what my child is feeling. It’s hard to ask, “How safe are you feeling at school?” I want to assure my child that ze is fully safe at school. When my child wonders aloud if maybe ze should have a bulletproof backpack I promise that I’ll do some research.
This morning, after hearing the news, I listen closely to my child’s voice, trying to hear if ze is ok. I hear myself telling zer that ze is safe. It’s true. Ze is at home with zer co-parent and a cuddly dog who will sit in zer lap. I suggest an audiobook or other relaxing things to do some self-care. I hear myself telling my child that there is a solution to this situation or there can be one. Gun laws can be changed and maybe they will be. It’s possible.
