As Return to Silver Rail Approaches, Parents Question Safety, Supports

Four weeks after a deadly shooting at Silver Rail Elementary, hundreds of families are preparing to send their children back to class, while some are looking for other options.

When students return for the first day back on Nov. 12, they’ll have a dedicated School Resource Officer, a handful of extra substitute teachers and at least one extra counselor, according to district officials.

Still, there is a swirl of anticipation and anxiety around the return. Students face trauma and look forward to reuniting with their friends, while some parents wonder about safety and support for their children.

Bend-La Pine Schools on Oct. 22 removed piles of stuffed animals, toys and other tokens that made a memorial to the Oct. 15 shooting victims at Silver Rail Elementary. The items were moved to storage for future use, the district said. Credit: Clayton Franke

On Oct. 15, a 16-year-old gunman returned to his former elementary school with a shotgun and killed three children — ages five, eight and 11 — and a 25-year-old teacher in a classroom for a special needs program in which he was once enrolled.

Ryan Duca’s child, a kindergartener at Silver Rail, was wrapping up picture day in the gym when the attack happened. Duca was at home, just down the street from the school.

When he got the alert of the shooting, “I didn’t even listen to the phone call, I just started running,” he said.

His daughter was unharmed. Duca doesn’t think the events have seriously affected her. She’s excited to get back and see her friends, he said.

Duca was among the 86% of Silver Rail families who said in a survey last month they wanted the district to reopen the school for learning. But he still has “great reservations” about his child returning.

“I feel like I’m sending my kid to a faraway island where she’s not going to be supported,” Duca told the Source.

Community meetings

Bend-La Pine Schools hosted two community meetings last week alongside local law enforcement and representatives with the National Mass Violence Center, a federally funded organization helping the district respond to the shooting. They fielded a string of questions from Silver Rail parents, and others across the district, many of whom asked whether the district could make their schools safer and who would be watching out for students’ and teachers’ mental health. Some were concerned the district was reopening the school too early.

Angie Moreland, a psychologist and associate director of the mass violence center, told Silver Rail parents that reopening a school about four weeks after a shooting is “pretty typical.” The longer the return is put off, the greater the fear becomes for families, Moreland said. Parents often breathe a sigh of relief after the return day passes, and kids benefit from getting routines back.

“Did they maybe have some things that were fearful for them, yes, because that’s part of the trauma,” Moreland said at the meeting. “But they like being back together, they like seeing their teachers. They want those things and they yearn for those things.”

Moreland said her organization has been working with staff across the district including teachers, learning specialists and bus drivers on how to recognize when kids are emotionally dysregulated and equipping them with “grounding techniques” to help ease anxiety.

Back to school

The district will have five to seven extra substitutes on hand to step in if teachers need to be one-on-one with students or take a break themselves, and to allow for “extra eyes,” BLPS Superintendent Steve Cook told parents.

Generally, preparing teachers has been going well, he said.

“I will tell you there are teachers that are chomping the bit to get back to your children, and I will tell you there are teachers who are still processing, too,” Cook said.

Cook said the district has been accommodating some families who want students to switch schools.

Other parents said their children are still processing what they might’ve heard that day. One mother said her seven-year-old child is having flashbacks, isn’t eating or sleeping and is already seeing a counselor. She worried her child walking by the area where the shooting occurred would trigger trauma.

BLPS Director of Safety Scott Bojanowski said a “temporary wall” is covering the classroom where the shooting happened, so students can’t see inside.

On Nov. 11, the day before students return, parents will have a chance to walk through the school to get a feel for the environment.

Bojanowski said the district’s entire safety team will be at the school on Nov. 12, along with a School Resource Officer dedicated to Silver Rail for the remainder of the school year.

Still, for parents with hopes that the tragedy would spur the district to fortify schools or add more staff for security, officials have painted a grim picture. Throughout the community meeting Nov. 5, the district repeatedly said the budget provided by the state has no room for widespread upgrades to schools or more staff, and would require a multi-year process of passing a bond or levy. Bojanowski estimated installing bulletproof glass at all 33 of the district’s schools would cost between $400 million and $600 million.

Some parents questioned the district’s lockdown procedures, wondering whether the school could’ve gone into lockdown faster and what happens if students are outside the classroom when an attack occurs.

Bojanowksi said it’s his understanding that “one or more people” saw when the shooter hopped a chain-link fence at the edge of the school grounds. He said the lockdown came from the front office “within a minute” and police arrived within two minutes.

The district has promised to hire a consultant to complete a full after-action review of the incident and how the district responded.

“I have this overarching feeling that nothing’s going to change,” said Duca, the Silver Rail kindergartener parent.