School offers `Bright light in a dark time'
Residents gather for new campus' dedication Saturday
In the year since a teenage assailant strode into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and killed 19 fourth graders and two teachers, the building has stood empty, its windows boarded over, its students dispersed to other campuses with little chance to maintain the bonds they once shared.
That began to change on Saturday, as residents of the small town in South Texas broke ground for a new elementary school in place of the one that became the scene of one of the worst school mass shootings in U.S. history.
“Something horrible happened here,” said Eulalio Diaz Jr., co-chair of a foundation dedicated to constructing the new campus, the first to be built in the town since 1985. “The new school, it's a symbol of moving forward. We will always remember what the new school means. It'll be a bright light in a dark time.”
The groundbreaking event began Saturday morning with a moment of silence for the 21 victims and a rendition of the song “El Rey” by the Uvalde High School mariachi band. Some visibly moved family members of the victims wiped tears as organizers talked about new beginnings and working together.
“We must remember the 21 lives taken from us,” Gary Patterson, interim superintendent of the Uvalde school district, said, speaking in front of a large banner with a rendering of what the new school will look like. “It's been a remarkable, remarkable journey, that I hope will take the students and the community into great strides into the future with this building.”
After a 3-2-1 countdown, area dignitaries and donors, including Jerry Mata, the father of Tess Mata, one of the victims, shoveled the first fistful of dirt to mark the official groundbreaking. Mata then walked over to the other family members, shook his head and said softly, “That was hard.”
In an interview, Mata later said it reminded him of the instant when he had to pour dirt over his daughter's coffin. “It takes you back to that moment, but I had to be part of it,” he said. “We need to remember why this school is here.”
Emotions remain raw 17 months after the tragedy, and many in this majority Latino community are still seeking explanations for why it took law enforcement officers from several agencies more than an hour to confront the assailant in a pair of connected classrooms where he was holed up with students, many of them dead or dying.
Robb Elementary is slated to be demolished as soon as the numerous lawsuits and law enforcement investigations are concluded and there is no more need to secure evidence from the crime scene.
The new school — 120,000 square feet, over two floors — will include a number of safety measures to prevent the entry of intruders and facilitate a police response, Diaz said.
Unlike Robb Elementary — which was built in the 1950s, an era when open access and many doors were not only welcomed but also expected — the new school will be relatively restrictive. Staff members will need badges to open the doors, and there will be fewer exterior doors, said Tessa A. Benavides-Cooper, a spokesperson with the Charles Butt Foundation, one of the donors to the project.
Visitors will be asked to wait in a vestibule where a staff member behind a secure door will assess whether the person should be buzzed in.