Taking action after Parkland shooting

Looking back to last year's Valentine’s Day, I remember blues skies, a quiet reflective and beautiful day in South Florida. Then a banner flashed across my computer screen, “active shooter.”

My first thought was, not again. But then I saw it was 10 minutes from my house. The sirens I had heard minutes earlier were no doubt rushing to school.

I began to see live feeds from the classrooms via Twitter with the screams and gunfire in horrific fashion. I was not going to be the same person after this.

A month later I marched with 20,000 students, husbands and wives in Parkland, walking 2 miles to the school.

Maybe there is some good to come out of this. We all needed healing, but venting on social media was not enough, I had to do something productive.

So last year I got certified to be a substitute teacher for Broward County Schools. The pay is barely above minimum wage, but spending days with elementary school kids has been truly rewarding and gives me a true understanding of the “love” of teaching.

Since I go to different locations and classrooms, I can see where there is still much more work to do to ensure the children of our future can be safe. We owe them that much. We failed them on February 14, 2018. Let’s not do that again.

Don West

Tamarac