Students in Uvalde, Texas, returned to the classroom Tuesday for the first time since the May 24 mass shooting that left 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School dead.
Grieving and anxious children were greeted by a new, eight-foot-tall metal fence, and at least 30 state troopers when they returned to campuses across the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.
Students who attended class at Robb Elementary School, where an 18-year-old with an AR-15 killed 21 people just months ago, will be relocated to two other schools.
Many students who were present the day of the massacre will remain in the district, just at other schools, while others have left the area entirely.
Children who were in first grade at Robb Elementary last year will begin second grade at Dalton Elementary this year, while last year’s second and third graders will go to the new Uvalde Elementary, located in a different part of town.
The old Robb Elementary School is set to be demolished.
The transition back to normalcy has proven to be difficult for many of the victims, including a third grader who has refused to return to school following the massacre.
Zayon Martinez wrapped up his year in second grade by hiding under a desk from the gunman. He now refuses to step into another classroom, his father told CNN.
‘I went and talked to my son and I told him, “They’re gonna have more cops. They’re gonna have higher fencing. And he wasn’t having it,”” said Zayon’s father, Adam Martinez.
‘He said, “It doesn’t matter. They’re not gonna protect us,”‘ he added.
Zayon, as well as many other students in Uvalde, will instead opt to take classes remotely. But online classes aren’t an option for everyone, including children in the district whose parents have to work.
‘I can’t stay home, I have to work,’ single mom Angeli Gomez told Texas Public Radio. ‘So then who’s gonna watch our kids?’
Families of students killed in the massacre have also spoken out about their concerns as the school year kicks off, including the family of Uziyah Garcia, who should be starting fifth grade this week.
‘You want your kids to be able to go and have that education and everything, but at the same time, you’re fearful that they’re not gonna make it out by the end of the day,’ Uziyah’s uncle, Brett Cross, who was raising him, told CNN.
Cross spent much of the summer demanding accountability from the school. He said he was not impressed by the minimal changes the district made ahead of the school year.
Many students have also enrolled at other schools, including Sacred Heart Catholic School, which offered 30 students from Robb Elementary scholarships to attend the private school.
School has already been in session for much of the state of Texas, but officials in Uvalde pushed back the start date for the district.
Despite the late start, many of the planned security measures at the district remain incomplete, including the installation of high fences at each school, installing additional security cameras and new locks.
Much about the response from law enforcement, which has been heavily scrutinized, has been revealed in the months since the shooting, including the fact that officers allowed the gunman to rampage inside two classrooms uninterrupted for over 70 minutes.
A report from a Texas House committee that investigated the shooting and response found that while there was no one person to blame beyond the gunman, numerous agencies contributed to the horribly botched reaction.
In response, several families have filed a massive $27,000,000 lawsuit against several law enforcement agencies, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and the manufacturer of the gun used in the shooting.
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