School reopens to aid healing
The last time Nerlyn Abraham was at school, she was hiding behind her teacher’s desk as a gunman’s bullets came through the windows of her classroom.
On Sunday, she and her mother were among the
thousands who returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — their first time back since the Valentine’s Day shooting that claimed 17 lives.
“It was a little weird,” said Abraham, a freshman who was there to pick up her backpack ahead of the school’s reopening for students on Wednesday.
Freshman Sammy Cooper also went to pick up the backpack he dropped when he saw accused gunman Nikolas Cruz.
“Two of my best friends aren’t here anymore,” Cooper said. “But I’m definitely going to school Wednesday. I will handle it.”
For about three hours, students and teachers mingled inside of the school and grief counselors were there for those who wanted to talk.
Outside the school, 17 memorial crosses overflowed with flowers and stuffed animals, with more being added on Sunday.
Many people came wearing #MSDStrong shirts and maroon ribbons to show their support. Some students cried and hugged others in front of their school.
Therapy dogs stood ready to help the families.
Sophomore Alexandra Geisser found comfort in the dogs. She petted one named Milly.
Milly was “the only thing that made me smile all day,” Geisser said.
A convoy from Hawaii arrived and put a 50-foot lei around part of the school’s fence. The lei came from different islands throughout the state, and was put together by Hawaiian students for an initiative called Lei of Aloha.
As part of the ceremony, organizers put a lei around Parkland’s mayor and other city officials, while giving their condolences.
Seventeen people, some of them survivors of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, were dressed in white, winged costumes and stood near an entrance to the school. Organizer Terry Decarlo said the costumes were there so that people “knew angels were looking over them.”
Although teachers had returned to the school on Friday, students will be back on a reduced schedule starting Wednesday.
The school is expected to return to a full schedule starting March 5. The school district is reconfiguring student schedules because the three story building where the shooting occurred won’t be used.
Commonly referred to as the 1200 building, it housed 900 students. The district has proposed demolishing the building.
“Just seeing the building was scary,” freshman Francesca Lozano said. Still, she was happy to see her friends. “That made it a lot better.”
Abraham said talking with her friends has helped her prepare for a return to school. But she has mixed feelings about the armed police expected to be stationed there.
“It’s relieving, and I think I’ll feel more safe,” she said. “But at the same time, it’s going to be scary with the guns around.”
Information from the Associated Press supplemented this report.