Multiple schools across the Uvalde School District opened this week, months after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead last spring.
The big picture: Robb Elementary, the scene of the horrific shooting, remains permanently closed.
- "We're not going back to that campus," Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said last spring, per Axios.
- "We have plans for it to become something other than a school site,” Harrell said.
Driving the news: Parents brought their children to schools in the Uvalde School District this week as doors opened for the 2022-23 school year, the Associated Press reports.
- Parents pushed the district to adopt virtual learning after the Robb Elementary shooting, the Washington Post reports.
- Other parents sought out new schools for their children in the nearby Knippa, La Pryor and Sabinal districts because teachers there can receive handgun training.
What they're saying: “I don’t want to raise them feeling secluded or isolated or raise them in a way that they don’t know how to handle their fears or their anxieties,” parent Marcela Cabralez told Washington Post. “So, you’re caught kind of in this place. What do I do? You know, am I doing what’s right?”
State of play: The Texas Department of Safety placed close to three dozen state troopers across schools in the district as a matter of security, Axios' Sareen Habeshian writes.
- Texas students and school staff have been encouraged to wear white and maroon to show support for Uvalde, according to Spectrum News.
- Parents at a school board meeting last week criticized the Uvalde district's new safety plan, The Texas Tribune reports.
- There's also been criticism because some officers involved in the failed response to the mass shooting will be on duty as the school year begins.
Uvalde Elementary opened early Tuesday with a new 8-foot metal fence around the campus and a state trooper as security at the front of the building, AP reports.
- The school welcomed students who were second and third graders at Robb last year.
Dalton Elementary will welcome second-grade students who were first graders at Robb Elementary, per CNN.
- The school also has an 8-foot metal fence for security, per the Texas Tribune.
Sacred Heart Catholic School had double the enrollment for elementary school students compared to last year, CNN reports.
- 30 students from Robb Elementary received scholarships to attend the private school.
Flores Elementary welcomed back fifth- and sixth-grade students from Robb Elementary, KENS-5 reports.
Go deeper: Uvalde school district to add officers on campuses following mass shooting
