A math teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., lambasted local officials and the national media Wednesday for using the 2018 shooting there to focus on gun control while skimping on mental-health resources for traumatized survivors.
"Parkland should go down in history as a case study in local incompetence aided and abetted by national partisan-driven coverage," teacher Kimberly Krawczyk wrote on the education news site The 74. "It seemed like everyone — from the Grammys to ESPN — was celebrating how strong our students were. But no one stopped to ask if they were actually all right."
Krawczyk blasted the national media for focusing on gun control and opposition to the NRA in the aftermath of the shooting. CNN, MSNBC, and other national outlets heavily promoted that message after such as organizations such as Everytown for Gun Safety helped bring some of the survivors to prominence in the movement for gun control.
CNN won a Cronkite Award for its town hall immediately after, which strongly favored the gun control argument and used students who had survived to promote the cause. Tragically, two students have committed suicide since the shooting, and Krawczyk blamed the lack of resources offered to traumatized students.
The Broward County School District provided "elementary school counselors who had no background in trauma counseling," failing to give students privacy with counselors, Krawczyk wrote. School district officials turned their focus to a #MSDStrong campaign that drew national attention, but, Krawczyk said, only further harmed students by requiring them to "be strong." She also stated CNN would have better served the two Parkland students who took their own lives by shining a light on conditions in the school instead of ginning up partisan outrage:
CNN just won the Cronkite Award for its town hall on the Parkland shooting and gun control. If it had instead sent a camera crew into the school, I think Sydney Aiello and Calvin Desir might still be with us.
One look at the school's media center in the weeks after the massacre would have revealed that the "care" provided by the Broward County School District was only reinforcing the trauma.
The school district filled the room with elementary school counselors who had no background in trauma counseling and told students seek help there if they wanted. The school district did not solicit the advice of mental health experts or implement a basic standard of care. There weren’t even privacy curtains. If a student tried to talk but broke down and cried, everyone could see.
District officials were distracted by their desire to craft a political narrative around the shooting, Krawczyk said.
"So much suffering could have been mitigated if our local leaders focused more on getting kids the help they needed and less on trying to craft a national political narrative," she wrote.
Krawczyk said the school district is guilty of lying, spinning, and even threatening local news outlets for reporting on their mistakes.
"School district leaders falsely labeled facts about what went wrong as 'fake news' and put all the blame on the National Rifle Association," she wrote.
She also quoted at length a mother of a student who was injured but survived the shooting. The mom said the district was worried about photo ops rather than being there for her son:
Photo ops and press conferences seem to be the district's focus, rather than focusing on those who are suffering. … Is some guidance on how the students can return to their classes after seeing their classmates murdered too much to ask? … This district should really be embarrassed. … Even the president of the United States, the first lady, the governor, the attorney general, the chief of staff and a senator had the time to hug my son. But not my school district, and not my son’s principal.
While gun control has been the preferred topic of the national media regarding the Parkland shooting, much of the local news has been about the mishandling of the attack by law enforcement. Sheriff's deputies did not go into the school to intervene, and Sheriff Scott Israel was fired by the governor after a drawn-out series of recriminations, including a state report showing officers had been untruthful in statements about their response to the shooting.
Along with Krawczyk's article, The 74 published a response by the Broward County School District, which argues it provided adequate resources to students and teachers.
"The Broward County School District responds that it focused on the wellness of students, faculty, families and the community immediately after the shooting, and continues to assess the needs of students across the county and address those needs," the statement reads.
"Our district continues to assess the needs of students across the county and to leverage all available resources to address those needs."
Krawczyk concluded her piece by imploring reporters to handle shootings differently in the future.
"The next time there's a school shooting, please look into what's actually happening at the school after. Kids' lives will depend on it," she wrote.
"And on behalf of all Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, teachers and parents, I hope the district will finally take mental health seriously, so that these two senseless suicides don’t mark the start of an epidemic."