Stoneman Douglas Parent Cathi Rush: "My Kids Are Doing Better Than I Am"
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Students and teachers returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday for the first day of classes since the deadly shooting on Valentine's Day.
One parent who has two children at Stoneman Douglas, Cathi Rush, joined the CBS4 News at 7 to discuss what the experience was like.
Rush has two sons, one in ninth grade and one in eleventh grade, that go to Stoneman Douglas High School.
"I think my kids are doing better than I am," she said. "They actually went back to school today and it was not a normal day. It was a media and police circus there."
Students arrived to quite a scene at the school Wednesday morning, as hundreds of supporters lined the sidewalk, holding signs and sharing hugs with students and parents as they walked onto campus.
While it was a welcomed sight for many returning to the campus, Rush felt differently.
"It was very, very disconcerting to me to drop my children off in that kind of environment, where they're walking through the gauntlet of the news media and the police officers and the dogs and the donkeys and the horses. It wasn't normal," she said.
Rush told a story from Wednesday morning when her younger son asked if he could bring a book he is reading to school.
"I was stunned," she said. "This is school, why is he asking to be able to bring a book to school? It shouldn't be that way."
Every student and staff member that was inside Stoneman Douglas on the day of the shooting is reacting in their own way to the horrible events, and Rush's boys are no different.
"They don't want to talk about it much," she said. "I think they didn't see or hear anything so they don't have a lot to talk about. I think a lot of their friends have a lot to talk about but my boys don't seem to want to talk about it with me."