Survivor Stories: Darren Thomas
Welcome to the Teachers Unified podcast. I'm Sarah Lerner. This episode features Darren Thomas, a teacher who survived the tragedy at Sagas High School in 2019. He talks about his experience that day, working to create the yearbook with his students, how he's cared for his mental health, and much more. So we are joined by Darren Thomas, who I came to know a few years ago.
Speaker 1:He is a former journalism adviser, English teacher for over seventeen years, taught at Saugus High School in California, is currently in Portland, Oregon, where it is far less hot than it is in South Florida, where I am. So welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Hi. Thank you. Good to be here.
Speaker 1:So I would like to start with what got you into education. Like, how did this whole journey for you start?
Speaker 2:So my grandmother and mother were both teachers, and it was something that was always kind of in the back of my mind. I think when I initially finished high school, continuing on in a profession inside of a school was the last thing I find. But after a couple years off, I eventually decided I wanted to study literature. I found my love for reading again in my early twenties and then started a program for English and then thought, well, what am I gonna do with an English degree? And decided, well, teaching is probably the safe route.
Speaker 2:It's I think it kind of started off as a kind of a a safety and then definitely became more my focus as I started moving through the program. And I was just really excited once I rediscovered my passion for reading and for literature and for composition. The idea of taking something that maybe some young people aren't so excited about, especially boys, teenage boys, and getting them to discover maybe a passion for literature that they didn't know that they had or for storytelling or whatever medium they find an interest in was something that really drew me to the profession. Of course, you know, like a lot of young or new or just starting off teachers, I think I had kind of an idealized version of what it was gonna mean to be teaching English, sitting around having these philosophical discussions about literature and themes. And, of course, you know, I can get there, but there's just so much more to the profession that I wasn't necessarily expecting that I came to appreciate in a lot of ways, what it means to just help develop and build character and and critical thinking and things like that.
Speaker 2:So that was my journey and things that I had discovered early on.
Speaker 1:How did you get involved in advising the yearbook?
Speaker 2:So after I taught for eleven years in Colorado, I moved to Southern California in 2017, and I had a pretty rough first year. It was the first time that I'd started over somewhere that was a completely new environment to me where I knew absolutely no one. So it was difficult, and I felt like the kids definitely were kind of testing boundaries that first year. Hey. Who's this new guy on campus?
Speaker 2:What can we get away with? And I was looking for ways to just really become more involved, and I wanted to the students and the staff to see my commitment and involvement and dedication to the school because I I felt like in the past, I was happiest when I did things like coaching soccer and advising a club. And I felt like the students saw my buy in, and I was looking for something to start my second year in California that would maybe give me that extra something to do in that buy in, and yearbook became available. Someone in my department said, have you ever thought of doing yearbook? I said, absolutely not, Because I knew the stereotype, you know, the last car in the parking lot and, you know, the long hours and just all the stress of kind of a a real world deadline and, you know, things like that.
Speaker 2:And the more I thought about it, though, I thought, you know, when I was in college, originally, I was a journalism major with a minor in photography. I thought that's what I wanted to do, but then, you know, switched my focus towards English. And I thought, you know, this really plays to a lot of things that I actually was really passionate about when I was younger. And I love project management. I love being able to make something tangible.
Speaker 2:Sometimes English gets a little bit frustrating because we're dealing with so many subjective goals and and objectives and things like that. And so having something like Yearbook, I thought, man, this would be a really cool opportunity. I should just give it a shot. And what more could I do to show my buy in than to become the Yearbook adviser at my new school after only teaching there for one year. So I thought I'm just gonna throw myself in and do this and and ended up really liking it a lot.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna get into the yearbook and all of that in a little while, but I would like, as much as you're comfortable, for you to share your experience from November fourteenth of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2:It was an interesting experience because having grown up in Colorado, school shootings were something that were always kind of in the back of my mind. I was 18 years old when Columbine happened, probably thirty minutes from where I grew up. And then, you know, there were some other pretty high profile incidents that happened when I was living in Colorado, like the the Batman theater shooting and some things like that. My first long term stint as a teacher was in Jefferson County in Denver, which was the same district that Columbine was in, and there were some other incidents when I worked in that district that were kinda scary. So we did a lot of very intense active shooter training in Colorado, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2:It was something that, at times, I thought was kind of excessive, maybe even a little bit psychologically traumatizing, some of to the extent that we did training. But I will say that when November 14 happened at Saugus, I did feel incredibly prepared. It was something that was kind of always on my mind. And, unfortunately, you know, there were times when I would walk on the campus and I would think, you know, what if today is the day? So that morning, I was actually in it's kind of like a period zero, like, really early morning class.
Speaker 2:Because I was the yearbook adviser, I was allowed to teach this the early morning class that not a lot of other people taught, and that's when it occurred. So I was in class, most of the student body and teachers were just arriving onto campus or were out in the quad. And my students that morning were actually taking, like, a practice test, getting ready for a unit exam at the end of the week. So it was very quiet in my room, and I remember everyone was on their computers. I was sitting at my desk, and all of a sudden, I heard the first shot.
Speaker 2:And from some of the training that we had done where they actually brought the police in and did, like, simulated drills where they fired blank rounds and things, with just the teachers, no students there. I recognized the sound immediately. Like, when you hear that, you don't forget it. And after the first shot, I just remembered my students immediately turning and looking at me at my desk. I said, everyone get on the floor.
Speaker 2:And I ran to the door and locked it and had the lights out. Thankfully, the whole thing only lasted about sixteen seconds from beginning to end. By the time the last shot was fired, my students were, like, hiding on the floor out of sight. I had the lights off. The door is locked.
Speaker 2:But then there was just this eerie silence. And, obviously, at the time, we didn't know what was going on. We didn't know if there was still someone kind of roaming around. We didn't know if it was a false alarm, but there was just this silence. And I just remember after about a minute or so, we started to hear the sirens coming.
Speaker 2:It was very quick. I remember within just a couple minutes, there were already, like, so many sirens, and then we started to hear helicopters. And that's when I realized, like, yeah, this is what happened. Unfortunately, we were in that room, like, in lockdown for hours because the individual who committed the shooting had shot himself with the last of his bullets. And when everyone arrived on the crime scene, they didn't realize that the shooter was one of the people laying there.
Speaker 2:And so they had to clear the campus, like, building by building, room by room. They thought he was still somewhere hiding on campus, and it wasn't until they reviewed video footage, like, hours later that they realized that there wasn't a threat anymore and they could start moving us out. So we were just hiding in that room for what felt like forever. You know, I think the thing that always stays with me was when I got to the door and locked it and had all my students on the ground, I just remember seeing all of the students running out past my room, and it was just something that was so wild to see when you see someone who's actually running for their life and just feeling so helpless in that moment. And that was what sat with me for the days after, was just thinking, like, what else could I have done?
Speaker 2:I just felt this helplessness that I know is pretty common with people in this situation. So that was just something that went over and over my head, like, what else could I have done? Is there something more that I could have done? Should I have been saying something different to my students who were there in the room with me? And just kinda replaying those things in my head and just kind of thinking about my role as the adult there and and what I could have done.
Speaker 1:So this happened before school officially started. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it was like I said, it was kind of this zero period where only upperclassmen were allowed to take a class if they had extra, like, sports or band or things where they needed extra time in the afternoon. It was a class that started at, like, 06:55 in the morning, and so it was during that class. And so, unfortunately, all of the people who were outside were mostly, like, ninth and tenth graders. And so they were the the classes who were were most affected by it because they were the ones who were actually out in the midst of what happened.
Speaker 1:There were two victims and three injured plus the shooter. Yes. So six total.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I met Mia Tretta and her mom, Tiffany, probably maybe three years ago at this point. No. She was going to be a senior, so it must have been two years ago. I met her at a voters of tomorrow event in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1:I had heard her name before, but I had never met her. What a remarkable young woman. I don't know if you ever taught her, but to have gone through what she went through, to lose her best friend, and to be injured herself, and to go on and do the things that she's done in her activism. I remember when everything happened at my school, and the kids were starting March for Our Lives. And, you know, everybody spoke about, like, the Parkland kids and really, like, made such a big deal about what these kids, these teenagers were doing.
Speaker 1:And you know this as an educator. Like, this is who these kids are. Like, they kind of get thrust into the spotlight willingly or unwillingly after something like this happens. But the activism and the the care for these social issues that the students at my school felt, that Mia and the students at your school felt. Like, this is already inherently in them.
Speaker 1:And, you know, unfortunately, it takes something like this to shine light on that and show it to the world. Did you find that people were talking about those Saugus kids the way that they talked about the kids at my school?
Speaker 2:Yes. Unfortunately, it's such a politicized issue. I think that, you know, when you start talking about gun reform or gun rights or anything like that, regardless of what might have happened in your community, there's always going to be a group of people who maybe, you know, wasn't there or wasn't impacted directly. And because of where they fall maybe within a political perspective, there's just less empathy than I would hope for. It's it's very disappointing.
Speaker 2:One of my most clear memories of Mia that just absolutely gave me a world of respect for her but also broke my heart was that it had to have been her junior or senior year, and there was a day without hate or some kind of, like, gun violence awareness protest that was happening at our school. Because it was a couple of years after what happened, we had I think that was an interesting shift was to watch when the students started coming in as ninth and tenth graders, you know, the next year, they weren't there. They didn't have the same experiences. They didn't necessarily have the same sensitivity to talking about certain issues that those of us who were there absolutely shared a common understanding of what was appropriate or what was maybe triggering. And during those protests, I remember watching Mia and a group of students stand up on the stage in the quad, literally feet from where the shooting happened.
Speaker 2:And she was leading, you know, some kind of chant where they were saying, I I think I have this right. I don't know if I have a word for word, but it was something along the lines of I deserve to live, which was so moving to see someone who had been victimized literally stand in that space and make that statement. There should be absolutely nothing controversial about that. And yet, I remember watching some of the younger students who hadn't been on campus or hadn't been yet at our school stand across from her and, like, unfurl political banners and start trying to scream them down and, like, scream over them to, like, silence them. It got to the point where some students actually started throwing, like, milk cartons and water bottles at them.
Speaker 2:And I remember I went out there to watch, and I immediately ran up front with, like, a few of the other teachers, and we formed, like, a little wall in front of the students to literally try to create some space so that nothing ugly happened, especially as, like, projectiles were starting to fly out of the crowd. Don't remember, like, literally seeing one of the kids who threw something and, like, running over and graphing him by the shirt and was like, you're coming to the office. But it was wild to see how even within the population there at school, not just within the community, of course, there were voices in the community who maybe don't have students who went there or didn't really understand what we went through, who made it this political issue. But it was something that was happening on campus too even, especially as as students came in and families came in who hadn't been impacted in the ways that those of us who were there were.
Speaker 1:I didn't have the same experience. It seemed like, at least from what I can recall, everyone was, like, on the same page at our school. But we didn't have, you know, events, like school wide events in, like, our, the main courtyard, which is where most of the students hang. But I do remember as the new classes came onto campus and those who were freshmen that day, you know, advanced through school, there was a very different vibe on campus. And at one point, mean, we had COVID mixed into their senior year, so that was all screwy.
Speaker 1:At one point, we were, like, quarter of the school were students that day and the others weren't. But most of the kids who weren't on campus that day were at our neighboring middle schools and were just over the fence or just down the road. So there seemed to be understanding and empathy, but then you always have the idiots who pull the fire alarm because they think it's funny or Right. Drop a textbook loudly on a table in the cafeteria or pop a balloon. You know, you're always going to have those people because they either don't get it or they don't care to get it or I guess they figure you should get over it now and clearly don't understand what triggers you or activates your anxiety and and all of that.
Speaker 1:How long was school closed since it happened so close to Thanksgiving? Like, were you off through the end of Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2:It happened about a week and a half before Thanksgiving break. And so we were closed for about three weeks, and then we came back I think we actually came back with just it was only, like, a week or so before winter break. We had obviously, like, frozen grades and things like that, and they wanted to give students the opportunity to do work to bring their grades up if they wanted to, but we couldn't assign any work or do anything that would bring any kids' grades down. And during that week, the main focus was not grades. The main focus was obviously just trying to reacclimate to being on campus and to get students to come back and then participate in, like, little arts activities.
Speaker 2:And, you know, it was that time where I think, you know, we all made, like, Amazon wish lists and shared them with our friends and family, the teachers, to fill our classrooms with, like, coloring books and activity books and board games, and the kids needed to be able to do something to just have kind of a community event there on campus where and community activities where we could just kind of normalize literally just being physically in that space again. And that was kind of the focus more during that week that we came back, and it was, like, optional. The students didn't have to come back. And then after winter break, you know, we still continued with some of that and then eventually moved a little bit more towards actually doing academic work again.
Speaker 1:I find it so interesting in speaking to survivors of so many different school shootings, you know, that happened at various times throughout the year, how the school and, like, the remainder of the year looked once people came back. Like, mine was in the February. We were off for two weeks, and then it was all, like, social, emotional learning, coloring, Play Doh, you know, therapy dogs, everything like that Yep. There were some teachers who taught. You know, the AP teachers still were responsible for covering whatever material on the AP exams that year, which was crazy to me.
Speaker 1:You know, I did not teach anything. All I did was finish the yearbook, which I say that so lightly, but that's that's all I did.
Speaker 2:All you did.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's all I did for fourteen hours, five days a week for six weeks. But, you know, I imagine that having it happen earlier in the year than what we had, you know, at some point, there would be, I guess, an expectation that learning at whatever level and whatever that looked like would start happening again. So, like, I know what my experience was like. But what was it like for you to come back, attempt to teach, do normal teacher stuff in the weeks after such a tragic thing happened at school?
Speaker 2:The English classes that I taught definitely we very, very slowly eased back into curriculum. But then it was really difficult to choose material to teach because, as you know, novels that are taught in English class are often not very happy reading material. You know? I wasn't gonna teach Romeo and Juliet. I wasn't gonna teach of Mice and Men.
Speaker 2:You know, there are things like that that were immediately off the table, and we're thinking, like, what can we even teach? What do we have that's not gonna be this depressing? So that was a challenge. But, obviously, as the yearbook adviser, the bigger challenge was this happened, like, right when we were starting our deadlines for the book. We had just submitted our covers at the October.
Speaker 2:We just submitted some senior ads and things, like, November. We're just getting into production. Production. And then just as production would be really, really ramping up in November and December, our schools closed for three weeks, and then we're back for, like, a week and a half, and then we're off for another we had three week winter vacation at the Central District. While I was able to let my English classes really focus on that social emotional recovery, when we got back in your book, it was like, okay.
Speaker 2:Let's start making pages. We have to make this book now. And, of course, I was worried about overwhelming these students who are also dealing with their own trauma and their own healing. But I think we all, as a group, very quickly found a purpose in making the book that was incredibly therapeutic. Mean, it became so important to me in my process of recovery.
Speaker 2:So, like, okay. I wanna make this book to celebrate the students that deserve to have something at the end of the year that they can look back on. We wanna highlight all of the accomplishments and amazing things that these students are doing and celebrate them. And so it became this really healing and kind of therapeutic process making the book. We had to jump right into production, but then what's really wild about our timeline, it's not anything like what other people probably experienced who've had something like this happen in the early part of the year.
Speaker 2:Because then right when we got back, we're coming into February of twenty twenty, and then COVID happened, and we were in lockdown. So about just over two months after we actually came back to school and we're just starting to teach again, COVID happened, and then we were off campus the rest of the year. Luckily, when I was watching the news, I kept telling the kids, like, I don't think we're gonna be back for a while. We need to finish the book now. And we start remember staying until 10PM every night the week before lockdown, telling the kids, I don't know if we're gonna be in school next week.
Speaker 2:We need to finish the book now. And I think part of me just wanted to get it done. But it was about two weeks before our final deadline, and we finished the book two weeks early. We submitted the final pages that Friday. And then that next week, we weren't back the rest of the year.
Speaker 2:So thankfully, at that point, we were just editing. I know everyone had a different COVID experience, and a lot of people really struggled, and there were definitely some very challenging things for a lot of people with mental health and being in isolation and that. For me and I think for a lot of other people at Saugus, the lockdown was such a blessing because we were struggling with having to be back there and trying to just power through the rest of this year. Being there and trying to deal with our recovery and just figure our own recovery out, let alone being responsible for all of these other students and how are they handling all of this. When we got to just stay home, put some stuff up online, we were in, online school for an, like, a full twelve months.
Speaker 2:We weren't back until, like, March of that following year when they finally opened the school again. So we got a full year then to really just kind of be in our own space and not be in that space where there were so many triggers and things and really focus on our own recovery, which I think was, for a lot of us, very helpful.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I have lots of thoughts. First of all, I am incredibly jealous that you finished your book before a deadline. I can say with certainty, I have never done that. I am always late, which is not my personality nor is it my fault, but you work with the hand you're dealt.
Speaker 1:So Yep. For starters, super jealous. I made a book during COVID as well, and it was right as we were starting to, like, come out of the fog of the 1819 school year, which was the year after our shooting, which was awful. And we were, like, just hitting our own, and this book was going great, and then the whole world went to shit. So I completely get it.
Speaker 1:When the news came out about the shooting at your school, I as I have done every time, which is so terrible that, you know, you think about these things. But I reached out to my yearbook rep to see if your school used Wallsworth as a publisher. And when I found out that you did, I asked my best friend, Mike Taylor, you know, if he could give me your contact information because I wanted to reach out teacher to teacher, but also adviser to adviser. Because when it happened at my school, there was no one to talk to, no one to help me. You know, you said you were 18 when Columbine happened.
Speaker 1:I was 19, but that book had already been finished. When Sandy Hook happened, I was advising newspaper at the time at a different school, but those were elementary school kids, and that book is different. So there wasn't anyone from a high school yearbook who I could reach out to. And I wanted to kind of pay forward the lessons I had learned and the things that we did because whether it's 17 victims, two victims, one victim, 50 victims, it doesn't matter. You know, it's stuff that needs to be covered and how do you figure all of this out.
Speaker 1:So Yeah. I texted you that night and I checked my texts a little while ago. I think it was like 07:30 my time, which would have been 04:30 your time. I wasn't trying to to be like obnoxious and obtrusive and like, you know, I don't even know if you were home at that point, but I just wanted to reach out and share unsolicited advice, which I am very good at and do all the time. And, you know, just let you know that I was here as a resource and, you know, a sounding board because I think when we are thrust into membership in this shitty club that none of us ever wanted to be a part of, it's nice to know that there are people who get it.
Speaker 1:And while the experience of that day is different than my experience, it really isn't. You know, I was locked in my room for several hours with students. I was giving a test that day. I realized months later that what I heard was gunshots, but mine was far in the distance because I was in a different building. You know, like, there are so many slight differences, but at the core, all of our experiences are the same.
Speaker 1:I wanted to pay it forward in the way that other survivors like Abby Clements and Paula Reid from Columbine, you know, had done for us in the immediate. And unfortunately, since the shooting at your school, I have reached out and spoken to teachers and yearbook advisers at other schools and have had people reach out to me, you know, if there's a car accident or suicide or something where a tragic topic has to be covered. And I don't wanna say that I've become like the de facto expert on this, but, you know, I guess pioneering all of this, it kind of has put me in that advisory space, which I'm I'm happy to help, but I wish that none of us had to make those books and have those discussions. And in a perfect world, you and I would not know each other because we would not have gone through what we went through. But I have that book, your 2019 book.
Speaker 1:I have it in my classroom. And in spite of COVID, even though you met your deadline and finished early, it's a beautiful book. I think I have three or four of of your books, and I asked for them specifically because I wanted to have them so I could see, you know, what you all did, but it meant something because we had a connection. I knew what you went through in finishing that book, and I knew what your students went through, and it was important to me to have it. You and that staff did a beautiful job with that book, and you should be very proud as I'm sure you are, but you should be very proud of of what you all managed to squeeze out under horrible circumstances.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah. It was, you know, really challenging because I knew that with anything that you make, you're never gonna make everybody happy. But I think the most valuable thing that you were telling me and that Mike Taylor and Jim Jordan and all of my reps and Rhonda and all of them at Wallsworth kept telling me was make the book that you were gonna make. You know, celebrate things that need to be celebrated, that you would normally celebrate.
Speaker 2:The kid that won state championship, the dance team that won the competition, the theater program who did an amazing job with, you know, the fall musical or, you know, whatever it was. Like, those kids still deserve to have their moment and to be celebrated. And, you know, obviously, there was a big motivation to cover the healing process, you know, and so many amazing stories that came out of people in our community who provided support and did amazing charitable things or student activism and ways that the community came together. If anything, that became the focus. I think one of the most important pieces of advice that I remember, and I can't remember who gave it to me, but someone said, unfortunately, when you Google Sagas High School, people will see what happened there forever.
Speaker 2:That's on the Internet. It's out there. That story has been told. You don't need to tell that story. You need to tell the story of what happened when the cameras eventually went away and the amazing things that your community was doing to come together and to heal from that event.
Speaker 2:So that became our focus and wanting to tell the story of what happened afterward.
Speaker 1:And I think that's really important because it is a year book. It is a book about the whole year, and it's a history book, and it's a record of everything that happened. And we were, like, a month away from our first final deadline and two months from our, like, final final deadline. Oh. And we were covering Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1:And we made an editorial board decision to include the Valentine's Day coverage because up until the last twenty minutes of school, that's what the day was about. And Yeah. You know, we went back and forth about it, but that was a true representation of what that Wednesday looked like. If you take out the victims profiles that we ran and the pages of, like, special coverage that happened, like, during the two weeks we were off and our return, it is a normal yearbook. And whoever gave you that advice is absolutely correct.
Speaker 1:I will not take credit because I don't think it was me. But it is to celebrate the kids and to share what the year was like. Granted, your year was more overshadowed by it than mine was. That's not what defined your year, and things still happened. And I think it's important that those stories are told.
Speaker 1:So I'm I'm glad that that was the direction you chose to go. But I do remember telling my kids, this is our story to tell, and everyone is going to cover it in the news. And if you Google Parkland, Florida or Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, it's the first thing that pops up, you know, forever. While everyone else is covering what happened, even still, six and a half almost years later, it's our story to tell. And no one can, will, or should tell it the way that we can.
Speaker 1:And that was what I kept impressing upon them when we were, like, stuck in the quicksand and trudging through to finish the book. This is our story. Somehow we finished, just like somehow you finished. And you made other books with some of the kids who were on campus that day. I made books with kids who were on campus that day.
Speaker 1:And COVID aside, the next three books, so those four in total, were not easy to make, but we had to. And I think that's a lot of what teaching and advising is like. You know? You do these things because you want to, but at a deeper level, you have to. You know the weight of what it is, and you have to do it.
Speaker 1:How long did you stay at Saugus?
Speaker 2:All of the victims of November 14 were ninth graders at the time. I remember my some of my friends and family right after the shooting were saying, you oh, you're not gonna stay there, are you? Like, you're just gonna, like, move schools or get out of there. And I remember thinking, no. I have to stay here now because I am not the teacher that I normally am.
Speaker 2:I am deeply traumatized in trying to just recover and be able to make it through a day. And at Saugus, they understood that. And if we needed to take a day, we could take a day, and no one asked a question about it. You know, one of the nice things was that they did provide us all workers' comp. It was something that was offered to us.
Speaker 2:And so you had to sign up for it. And I was going around campus trying to tell everyone whether you think you need it or not, you need to sign up for this because they will provide you with a trauma therapist. They provided us like, I even did, acupuncture and things like that all under workers' comp. Any kind of, like, anxiety medication, things like that were needed. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:Even taking days off fell under workers' comp. And so there were some amazing supports like that that I absolutely did take advantage of and that were offered because I was there at the school. And so I felt like it was very important for me to stay there, not just because people knew what I was going through, and there was obviously a a community and a bond that was established with all of us that day. We all understood each other. And as much as even my parents were wonderful, wanted to understand what I was going through and tried to provide every support and things, and they did amazing things for me, they weren't there that morning.
Speaker 2:And so unless you're there and you've been through something like that, you really just aren't gonna understand the full extent of what it means to, like, have a noise trigger where, cognitively, it makes no sense, but your body just starts acting in certain ways. Things like that. So I needed to stay at SAGUS to heal, and I knew I would get support there. But I also felt a deep sense of commitment to you know, there were students who were there who were ninth graders. Most of the students who were out there were ninth graders, and I didn't feel like it was fair that I could pick up and leave, and they had to finish their entire high school career.
Speaker 2:If they were gonna be in that space for the next four years, I felt like a sense of I needed to be there. This last school year was the first one that I spent here in Oregon, so I guess it would have been May 2022 was my last time at soccer. So I stayed with that group for the rest of those four years, and then I decided to kind of quote, unquote graduate with that senior class and get a fresh start. You know, there was also something about there was something powerful about being there with that community. But by the time those seniors left, the teachers were the only community that was still there that really understood, and now we had a whole school full of students that didn't understand our triggers.
Speaker 2:So it was also there was something for me where it just felt like the right time to go. All of the students have made it through and left. I think after four years, I finally got to a point where the only triggers that I usually experienced happened when I was there on campus. I got to a point where out in my day to day life, most of my triggers were were under control after four years, but it was when I was there in that classroom, still teaching in that same classroom, when I would hear a noise or hear the kids scream because they're excited or whatever, but you don't understand the context of it. Or I'd see kids run by my room because they're just chasing each other or whatever, and, like, those triggers would still happen.
Speaker 2:But I realized if I'm not there in that space, a lot of those were were under control. So that's been something that's really helped is just getting into a new space. There's still times I I know that I I definitely have some of that hyperawareness at my new campus, but it's just not quite the same.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting that you felt like your triggers came from school mostly. I find I am rarely triggered at school. Most of mine come in my daily life. I don't know why that is. I mean, I certainly don't wish I only felt it at school.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I am only I'm only an off campus triggered person. I wanna talk about the resources that were made available for you because I think that's great that they offered workers' comp that kind of was an umbrella catch all for all of these different things. Were there resources that you wish had been made available that weren't or things that they offered that weren't actually helpful or needed?
Speaker 2:I feel like the the resources that were offered were definitely over offered in terms of, you know, here is this big, large kind of umbrella of coverage for what you might need. And there were you know, because even those of us who were there were all affected differently. There were people who weren't on campus yet. There were people who were in their rooms like I was, and, you know, we heard things and we saw limited things, but then there were people who were actually out there and people who ran out into the chaos when they heard the shots and saw things. And so there were some teachers who did not return for weeks or months or ever.
Speaker 2:Not many, but they were very understanding of what each of us needed individually and very lenient in terms of giving us leave and allowing us to return when we were ready to return. We had a I can't remember the gentleman's name, but there was he probably came to your school. There was, like, this national psychologist, like, expert who said that he had spoken to the people at Columbine. He'd spoken to the people at Sandy Hook, and he was the one who, when we did start coming back as a staff, provided trainings about what to understand about PTSD and what to understand about what students were gonna need, what they were gonna be capable of, what we should expect to be doing. And a lot of the the staff training that he was doing and kind of creating a return to work policy, there were just a lot of supports like that that were provided to us.
Speaker 2:So we had a lot of information, but we also had a lot of supports actually put into place. And, of course, we were also offered all of the same kind of, like, art therapies. There were all of these we were an outdoor campus, so they brought in all of these trailers. We weren't too far from, like, Burbank and Hollywood, so they were actually, like, these TV production trailers and things that they all brought into campus or, like, parking lots out by the gym and stuff or, like, full of these trailers where they provided free therapy or quiet spaces and things like that. We had a lot of support like that, and it was kind of just, you know, you take what you need and what you feel like you need.
Speaker 2:And I felt like there were some people who just kind of powered through, and they just didn't seem that affected. And there were definitely other people who, you know, took full advantage of those and needed a lot of support. You know, they were pretty flexible with what they offered, and and it was definitely very nice to have, especially with the workers' comp to be able to take days off without draining your, you know, your paid time off, you know, to be able to get an actual trauma therapist, not just, you know, some counselor or something, but, like, an actual trauma therapist off campus. Some of those supports were definitely very, very helpful.
Speaker 1:That's great. I mean, I can say, and I have said many times, that what our district did looked really good on paper. But from my perspective, it was not what we needed, and I don't think that the teachers were included in any decision making. For the following school year, they gave us an extra ten days of PTO or sick time, I guess, that we could use, but they have since pulled that back. And two of the school board members are directly connected to the shooting at my school.
Speaker 1:One lost her daughter and one lost her husband. And as they know, as you and I know, as everyone who's gone through any sort of traumatic event knows, trauma and healing are not linear. And you can't just make this decision that we don't need those days off anymore. And they were giving us 15 copay free therapy visits. But after that, you have to pay your copay.
Speaker 1:And then at some point, that stopped. And I know that there were teachers at my school who never took advantage of therapy even with the copay assistance because, you know, if you go once a week, $25 a visit, that's a hundred dollars a month if you're a young single teacher. Mhmm. You can't afford that. And we had therapy dogs on campus, but once those freshmen graduated, they took that away.
Speaker 1:Like, there were things put in place that stopped when the kids left because the district or the new site admin team felt that it wasn't needed anymore, but I'm still there. We're still there. Like, a bunch of us are still there, and I'm on the downslope of my career. You know, I have eight to ten years left until I can retire. This is my third school.
Speaker 1:Like, you know, just to assume that we don't need these things anymore is absurd. So I'm glad that you felt supported, and you felt that the resources were helpful and useful. And I hope that enough of your coworkers took advantage that they felt the same way. Kinda piggybacking on that, outside of the resources provided by the school, how have you cared for yourself and your mental health over these five years? Because I imagine moving and changing locations was a big positive.
Speaker 1:But, like, what have you done, or how have you taken care of yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think that one approach that I had from day one was just that having been through some difficult times, even in my early adulthood, I knew that there were things that happened that I, in the past, didn't wanna talk about. And I just kinda buried them. I never brought them up, never talked about them, and I knew that they had this long lasting effect on me and my decisions and my mental health. And so when this happened, I thought, I am not going to treat this the way that I've treated any kind of traumatic event in the past.
Speaker 2:I'm going to make an active effort not to change my behaviors in certain ways. I think especially when I felt like retreating or changing a behavior that might make me feel safer, I would try to, as much as I could, actively push against that. So, like, for example, I used to always teach with my door open. Because we had this outdoor campus, I would leave my door open and had this nice ventilation. And and so my door was open that morning, which is another reason why we heard things very clearly.
Speaker 2:But when we went back, of course, my first thought was, like, I'm teaching with my door closed. And then I thought, no. I need to push myself to, like, understand that nothing bad is gonna happen if I leave my door open. I need to just not start changing my behavior in that And, of course, then it was like, well, I'm really uncomfortable walking through this part of campus, and I was starting to realize that I was changing my route walking through campus and things like that. I thought, no.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna push myself to just take the normal route that I would take. You know, things like that. And even outside of school in my daily life, you know, there were other circumstances. I go to a lot of concerts, a lot of movies, and things like that, which are also unfortunately areas where stuff like this tends to happen. And there have been times where I've seen something that kind of set off alarm bells in my head, like I'm in a movie and all of a sudden I noticed the guy in the front row has a backpack with him or something.
Speaker 2:And everything in my head is screaming, get up and leave this theater. It's not worth it. Just get up and leave. And I thought, no. I'm just gonna sit here.
Speaker 2:Nothing bad is gonna happen. I think pushing myself to the extent that it was okay to, still giving myself some leniency when I needed it, but just really pushing myself to kind of power through some of that discomfort in the long run was very helpful. I think also not avoiding discussions of it was something that also was very helpful to share my story and to talk about it because, of course, you know, in the weeks and months after it, like, everyone that I knew was, like, reaching out to make sure I was okay. And, of course, questions start to come in, like, what happened? And I thought, you know what?
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna shy away from this. I'm gonna talk about it. I'm gonna tell moment by moment what happened that morning and just normalize talking about it. Because I feel like if I have to wrestle with this in isolation on my own and not share that experience and I have to deal with that experience on my own, it was I feel like it would have been so much more difficult to just process it and that than it was by just normalizing talking about it. So that was, I think, one of the most helpful things for me was to just be open about my experience, normalize talking about it, push myself to not let it totally change my habits in that.
Speaker 2:Now, of course, I did move, but I feel like even part of that was an opportunity that kind of landed for me because I met my wife in April of twenty twenty two. She had an internship in Portland and then was offered a full time job here. They offered to pay our moving expenses, and I thought, well, this is perfect. Let's go. And it was just a way to kinda turn the page and start a new life with her.
Speaker 2:I felt like it was important, though, that I left when I did. I didn't wanna leave immediately afterwards. I wanted to fully process and fully heal as much as possible from what happened and then move on. So I think, you know, like you said, everyone's journey is a little bit different, you know, and some people were kind of like business as usual, at least on the outside, like, pretty quickly. And some people I know at Saagas are still really struggling with what happened.
Speaker 2:So everyone experiences, of course, are very different, but I think it was important to acknowledge what my process was, like, and be okay with the fact that it might take me a little bit longer, but that it was also okay to go.
Speaker 1:A change in scenery for some people is a great thing, and everyone processes and deals with things differently. I have stayed at Stoneman Douglas in the same classroom. I still live in the community. I think we're gonna move after I retire, which will be never. But I think that will be a good change, you know, to start that next part of my life.
Speaker 1:Are you still going to therapy? I don't know if that's too personal to ask.
Speaker 2:I have not been recently. I did trauma therapy for about a year after November 14, and then I continued with some individual therapy outside of the trauma therapist for a while even after that. But I got to a point where I felt like it had served its purpose. You know, I think with anyone who's ever done therapy, I think at a certain point, you get you you reach a point where you're starting to kind of just rehash a lot of the same things. And if you're not coming to new insights and that, there was a point where I thought, you know, I think I'm I'm okay.
Speaker 2:And, you know, I don't mind sharing that. You know, I I definitely took advantage of using even, like, anxiety medication because I had never had a panic attack in my life. And in the months after the shooting, there were times where I had a couple, like, full blown panic attacks, one even, like, right as class was about to start. And, thankfully, my my admin was happening to walk, like, room to room and came in and saw me, like, just in tears and was like, go home. I've got your I've got your class.
Speaker 2:Go home. Take care of yourself. It impacts you in a way that it it is hard to understand, and I think that was something that was so scary about it is that I was having emotions and experiences that I'd never had in my life, and I'm thinking, why is this happening? Like, I'm normally so in control of my emotions. I'm normally so calm, and suddenly, I'm having these wild extremes of emotion.
Speaker 2:You know, being able to just even have that support and have an anxiety medication that I could use even just a little bit to help me through some of that, you know, was nice. But I reached a point where I realized I'm okay. All of this has subsided, and, you know, I can kind of move on from the medication. I can move on from some of the really intensive trauma therapy things like that that definitely served their purpose for a while.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. I'm really, really happy for you. I still take anxiety meds and probably will for the rest of my life. I think it's the shooting coupled with just being neurotic. Okay.
Speaker 1:I have two more questions. What do you think the teachers and school staff can do to use their voices in times of tragedy like school and community gun violence?
Speaker 2:Telling your story can be such a powerful tool because the news cycle is always very quick. You know, the cameras show up, the news show up with something very traumatic like a school shooting. I mean, might might be there for a week or two weeks or three weeks, but even then, they move on, and that's all most people see. But as you know, and as anyone who's been through something like this knows, it will take months or years for the community to heal and for the community just deal with the aftermath of everything that happened. And it doesn't end for us when the news cameras go away.
Speaker 2:And so just like we were saying, you know, the yearbook students and editors had this really unique opportunity to tell their story that goes beyond the headlines. I think that's something really powerful that, you know, anyone can do, whether you're an educator or not, is to, you know, share that unique perspective that you have and to tell your story and to really share how much further this goes than just a two week news cycle or even a a day or two news cycle and how deeply this does impact you, your family. You know? Because it's not even just the people that were there on campus, you know, that's the family and friends of those who are impacted are also impacted. You know, they're seeing you hurt.
Speaker 2:They're seeing you suffer, and they're having to pick up slack and to carry you for a little while and to provide you those supports. And so it impacts such a wide swath of people. And I think that's what's important for people to understand, and the unique opportunity that you have is to tell that story and to share that.
Speaker 1:I think it's incredibly brave to continue to share a story when something like this happens. You know, the fact that you have over these years, that I have over these years, there are so many who don't want to or maybe don't see the value in it. But I found talking about my experience helped me move through my trauma. And if in hearing my story, I could help one person, as cheesy as that always sounds, you know, if I can reach one person, I've done my job. But it's true, and I'm glad that you still wanna talk about it.
Speaker 1:And, you know, even though you aren't in the community anymore and you're not at the school anymore, it stays with you. You don't leave that in California when you move to Portland. And there may come a time that you don't wanna talk about it anymore, or you feel that sharing your story has run its course, or you've done it enough that people must have heard it already. And that's fine too. But to be brave and relive it, talk about it, answer questions, and all of that, I think is a big thing.
Speaker 1:And, you know, I'm glad not only that you wanted to share your story, but that you wanted to do it here so that other educators and other gun violence survivors can hear it because it's important. What advice would you give to young teachers or those looking into getting into education in terms of safety and in light of your experience?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that one thing that is often overlooked in this discussion is the importance of building school community in general and even as a preventative measure. You know, I try to stay very active in even, like, my current school in participating in focus groups that deal with, like, inclusivity and diversity and school culture and climate. I think that's where it really begins because, you know, unfortunately, we hear time and time again that individuals who commit acts of violence like this often don't feel connected to the community. They feel isolated or, you know, in some way kind of on the outside, and it could be for any number of reasons. After having gone through something like this, I'm much more conscious about the climate of my classroom and trying to make connections with students and really trying to just even find ways to be human with them, not to be just, you know, the teacher in the front of the room and whatever authority in their life, but just to be an adult who cares and who tries to find ways to connect with them on any level.
Speaker 2:And so I think building community and trying to build inclusivity and embrace, you know, diversity of all kinds, all of that, those are all puzzle pieces that I think help build a healthy school climate that obviously isn't gonna be perfect. It's not going to reduce all risk of anything like this happening, but it certainly can do its part to help. But I would also say, you know, there's all sorts of opportunities for activism and finding out, you know, what you can do to help even spread the word about gun violence, gun laws. As far as new teachers, I would also just say that teaching is a calling for a lot of people, but I think that most people, no matter what you get into teaching for, it's a profession that requires a ton of flexibility and a ton of embracing the unknown. And I think that if you're the kind of person who's already considering a career in education, you know, there's a certain amount of risk that's always involved in taking on something like that and a certain amount of selflessness.
Speaker 2:We know what the pay is. And I think that if you're the kind of person who's already considering taking on education, I would say don't let things like this discourage you. You have an incredible opportunity to impact exponential amounts of people by creating, like, wonderful, caring environments in your classroom and, like, touching a lot of lives in that way.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow teachers unified to end gun violence on Instagram and threads at teachers unify, and follow the podcast on both platforms at teachers unify p c.