The Newtown massacre has left the Staples community feeling distraught over the 26 people murdered last Friday. “The Governor has declared that all schools have to observe a moment of silence in memory of what happened in Newtown on December 21st at 9:30,” Principal John Dodig said.
Many teachers at Staples felt the need to discuss the shooting with their classes in order to make sure students felt safe. “We talked about it a little bit in class just to make sure everyone was feeling okay because the most important thing is that students feel safe in the school,” said Christine Hirth, a biology teacher.
According to the students interviewed, it was very comforting to be able to discuss this in classes because the situation occurred only 22 miles away from Westport. “This needs to be discussed because we need to know how we can be safe in order to prevent another massacre from happening,” Spencer Gabor ’15 said.
For the most part it seemed it was the English and Social Studies teachers that put a lot of time into discussing the incident.
“My Caribbean teacher had us do an activity where we wrote down on a piece of paper our negative thoughts and then what we learned from it. She then made us throw away all of the negative things and we kept the positive things,” Greg Carl ’13 said.
According to those interviewed, many teachers had their students write down their feelings and how the school could take precautions in the future. “This helped us all understand the situation and made us realize we are not alone,” Lucas Jackson ’15 said.
Staples provided counselors and adults that were available to talk to students. It has been tough for the whole community to cope with this tragic massacre.
“We can’t ignore this and we need to talk about it to get our feelings out. I was glad we talked about it because it’s important not to forget this,” Maddie Demeter ’15 said.
