Former principal’s advice is sought after Fla. tragedy
PARKLAND, FLA. » After school shootings like the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, administrators reach out to former Columbine High principal Frank Deangelis for advice, since there is no book to teach what he learned after two young gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher in 1999.
There should be no balloons at Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ welcome-back ceremony, he told the school’s administrator.
The reason: Some balloons popped at Columbine’s reopening, sending students diving for cover. Have substitutes on hand in case teachers need time to compose themselves. Change the sound of the fire alarm, which got pulled at both Columbine and Stoneman Douglas during the shootings, or it will cause some to panic.
Deangelis, who spoke to Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ principal, said everyone must understand that the staff and students will never return to what they were before the shooting.
“It really is a marathon and not a sprint,” he said in a phone interview from his Colorado home. “There are going to be days when everything seems to be getting back to where it might have been prior, but then something happens to hinder the healing process. One of things people asked me right after Columbine is ‘When is it going to be back to normal?’ I said it never really gets back to normal.”
Deangelis, who retired in 2014, said the survivors will deal with the tragedy in different ways.
“Some people needed to constantly talk about the experience and their feelings and where they are at any particular day and any particular moment,” he said. “You had others who felt that ‘The sooner I get back to teaching and get back to the activities I was involved with prior to the tragedy, it will help me move forward.’ And then you had those people in between. For everyone, it is a challenge.”