Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher offers support to Uvalde community
Scars that will be left from deadly school shooting
FOX 5's David Kaplan spoke to a former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher who witnessed the school shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018. She says she hopes to be a source of comfort for the Uvalde community just as others who had a similar experience helped Parkland.
WASHINGTON - The funerals begin this week for the 19 students and two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas last Tuesday.
The pain that the community feels will never go away, according to Ivy Schamis.
Schamis is a Northwest D.C. resident but was also a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018 when a former student killed 17 people and injured 17 more in a shooting.
"I think about it every day," Schamis told FOX 5.
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Two of the students killed were in her classroom. Shamis says any news of another school shooting is painful.
"When I hear these things on the news, it literally brings me to my knees. I immediately reach out to my students because I know it triggers them," Schamis said. "I’m sure it triggers many people who have been involved in any type of shooting."
Schamis indicated the Uvalde shooting has been especially tough on them.
"It’s not something where it’s been four years, it’s time to move on. Their moving on with their lives, but something like another school shooting triggers their feeling of doom and gloom. And it remains with them the rest of their lives," she said.
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Her experience the last four years tells her that this is pain that will never leave the Uvalde community. Schamis said she thinks of the families, the parents, the teachers:
"I pictured the parents of Uvalde, Texas waiting for news on their child. I just can’t, even though I was there, and I saw the parents," she said. "I just can’t even imagine being one of those parents and trying to figure out if your child was the unlucky one."
According to Schamis, there’s a feeling of helplessness with each new mass shooting. She said that she hopes to be a source of comfort for the Uvalde community just as others who had a similar experience helped Parkland.
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"I think the biggest help to us at Parkland, the teachers, and the community in the school was that there were teachers who reached out from Sandy Hook and there were teachers that reached out from Columbine, and I would like to be that support for any educator that would like to talk to someone," Schamis said.