FOR SANTA FE HIGH, A NEW NORMAL
Students begin the year with heightened security, range of emotions
For weeks, Bailee Sobnosky’s heart would race when she would think about the first day of school.
The 16-year-old had occasional panic attacks ever since the morning of May 18, when gunshots erupted 200 feet away from where she was dropping off her soccer uniform at the Santa Fe High School girls locker room. Thoughts of the 10 who died and 13 who were injured in the massacre would race through her mind after hearing a loud noise or watching certain news stories. What if she began to panic in the middle of a crowded lunchroom? Or during class changes? What if she couldn’t find a quiet place to try to control her breathing?
“I asked one of my teachers, ‘After I stop eating at lunch, can you write me a pass to come so I can come to your class?’ ” Sobnosky said Monday. “I was worried I would be overwhelmed.” Despite her reservations, Sobnosky was among hundreds of students who streamed into Santa Fe High School Monday morning, starting the 2018-2019 school year at the site of a mass shooting three months earlier. While students hugged friends they had not seen in weeks and played ice-breaking games in their classes, changes were evident as soon as they stepped foot on campus.
It took nearly 20 minutes for some to shuffle through the school’s new metal detectors, which were set up at three different entrances. A host of recognizable and unfamiliar law enforcement officers and security guards watched over the cafeteria. Comfort dogs panted near some entries and exits as stu-
“… It just feels different. You can feel the pain.”
Bailee Sobnosky, 16, Santa Fe High School student
dents learned to navigate new corridors carved out of damaged sections of the building.
The rising sun radiated off the school’s roof as a half-mile-long line of cars crawled toward the parent drop-off lane, inching to the school’s main entrance until about 20 minutes after the first bell rang. Other students, who drove to the student parking lot, bunched together near the auditorium entrance, looking at their phones and yawning while they waited to be screened.
Shelley Pedraza, whose son Mark is a senior, said he arrived early, anticipating a wait. He still was surprised when classmates were told to go through the metal detectors several times after their three-ring binders set off the machines. She worried some students who rely on school breakfasts would miss out because of the wait.
“I called the school and told them, I know it’s the first day, but how long is this going to last?” Pedraza said.
Santa Fe ISD Superintendent Leigh Wall said the delays stemmed from staff members showing students how to prepare their backpacks for the metal detectors, which they keep on their backs while they are screened. She said all students had gone through security by 7:40 a.m., about 35 minutes after the first bell.
“Our goal is to have all students go through in 30 minutes. That’s what we’re working toward” in the next couple of weeks, Wall said. “The students were very cooperative.” Extra trauma and guidance counselors from the school district, Texas Children’s Hospital, the Gulf Coast Center and the Region IV Education Service Center were on hand Monday to help students and staff transition back. Wall said many of those resources will remain at the school for the long term.
It was unclear how many students came back Monday. Earlier this summer, some parents said they would keep their students home out of fear for their safety. Others said their teens were too traumatized to return to the site of such carnage. Wall said it appeared that more students came to pick up their registration materials in the weeks before school started, a promising sign, but that the district would not have official numbers on enrollment or transfers for several days.
For some, it was the first time they had been back to the school since the shooting. The district had remained closed the week after, and classes resumed during the last week of school.
On Monday, teachers were tasked with keeping the mood light, helping students who felt uneasy and laying out new, stricter policies ranging from more enforcement of the dress code to academics.
Sobnosky said students now must record the time and date of every bathroom visit on a sign-in sheet. Swinging by other classrooms to pick up notes during another period is a no-no. The adults commiserated with students’ frustrations over the changes, but said the new security measures would not stop them from learning or having fun.
Their assurances and empathy helped stave off a prison-like vibe Sobnosky had expected, but an undercurrent of malaise remained.
“Just the atmosphere of the school, it just feels different,” she said. “You can feel the pain.”