Editor TLN
A worrying new school year began Tuesday in Uvalde.
There are new tall fences, still unfinished, around public schools in this Texas community, a heavy police patrol that many families don’t trust, and there will be no more classes ever at Robb Elementary School, three months after an individual with an AR-15-style rifle there killed 19 children and two teachers in two adjoining fourth-grade classrooms.
Ashley Morales takes her son, Jeremiah, back to class, having no other choice as a single working mom. She said she locked him out of Uvalde Elementary School on the first day because her parents were not allowed in.
“I’m very nervous, scared,” said Morales, whose son was in third grade last semester at Robb School and lost three friends in the May 24 massacre. During a meet-the-teachers meeting one recent night, she felt anxious walking around the school.
“My God, this is really starting, it’s starting the school year,” he said.
Students began arriving at Uvalde Elementary before dawn Tuesday, passing through a newly installed 8-foot-high fence that surrounds the campus and past a state trooper on duty at the entrance. Colorful banners hung in the hallways and teachers wore blue T-shirts that said “Together We Grow and Together We Are Better” on the back. There were state troopers posted on every corner outside the school.
Teachers hugged students getting out of cars at the entrance and ushering them toward a line of teachers waiting for them behind the fence.
“Good morning, darling!” said a teacher. “Ready for another year at school?”
Although classes began weeks ago in many parts of Texas, authorities postponed the first day of classes in Uvalde after a summer of unimaginable pain, anger and revelations of flaws that allowed an 18-year-old gunman to shoot for more than 70 minutes. in both classrooms.
Despite the postponement, school officials in Uvalde say several of the new security measures have not been finalized, including the installation of additional cameras and new locks.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has pledged to station nearly 30 state troopers in schools in Uvalde, but that is not reassuring to some families, as there were more than 90 state troopers on the scene during the attack.
More than 100 families in Uvalde have signed up for virtual classes, while others have taken their children out of the district and enrolled them in private schools.
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