Maryland Schools Offer Extra Support To Students And Staff Following Mass Shooting In Texas
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The elementary school mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday prompted some schools in Maryland to offer extra support to students and staff.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Anne Arundel County Schools said security was increased to relieve anxiety from families and those who attend their campuses.
Meanwhile, Baltimore County Schools extended professional help to their students and staff who wanted to talk through the mass shooting.
"Many times, our students want to talk about it so we do provide that space if they want to have a conversation, but we have it with our experts, our counselors, our social workers, BPWs, and our administrators to give us some time to kind of process what's happening," Superintendent Darryl Williams said.
These conversations may also happen at home with parents and guardians faced with difficult questions by their youngest family members.
"The school shootings get national horror and attention because of its scale and scope but when we look at the number of shootings that are happening here in Baltimore, and there are kids that are being killed or witnesses to violence, we need to be just as outraged," Adam Rosenberg, the executive director of LifeBridge Health Center for Hope, said.
The program aims at violence intervention by helping people of all ages in our community work through trauma, including witnessing a homicide to domestic abuse.
"It's hard enough for adults to try to process this, let alone children, how can we help them with that?" WJZ reporter Cristina Mendez asked Rosenberg.
"I think one thing any parent can do regardless of a child's age, you know your child best, is to ask have they heard about what happened in Texas," Rosenberg said.
That was the approach Raisa Lefe Rouse, mother of five, took with her two oldest children.
"They were speechless," Lefe Rouse said. "Speechless like so many of us."
Less than 24-hours after she had that heartbreaking conversation, her three youngest children were sent into lockdown at Baltimore Montessori Public Charter because of a threat later found to be untrue.
She decided to dismiss her children from school early following the notification from the school.
"I send prayers to everyone, all the families in Texas," Lefe Rouse said. "Just going through this minor situation I can't imagine being alerted that my child died because of school shootings so my heart goes out to those families."