Some Uvalde school shooting survivors are too traumatized to return to school but cannot do remote learning because both parents work in-person
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- Students at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, are starting their school year this week.
- Many are too traumatized to attend their new campuses as the school implements new security measures.
- But others cannot access the remote learning option because both of their parents work in-person.
Uvalde elementary school students who survived the May 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School are too traumatized to return to school, but some are left with no other options.
On Tuesday, the new school year started for Robb Elementary School students, most of whom will be attending a new campus or doing remote learning, according to CNN, while a few dozen have secured scholarships at private schools outside the school district.
The district will assign 10 additional school resource officers as well as 33 Texas Department of Public Safety officers to the new campus and will also install 500 new security cameras. None of the officers who responded to the shooting will patrol the new school, according to the CNN report.
But many survivors, including second grader Zayon Martinez, told CNN that they don't feel safe on campus regardless of the additional security measures that the district has taken so far.
"I went and talked to my son and I told him, 'They're gonna have more cops. They're gonna have higher fencing.' And he wasn't having it," Zayon's father Adam Martinez said. "He said, 'It doesn't matter. They're not gonna protect us.'"
During the May 24 mass shooting, the shooter killed 19 students and two teachers. At least 376 officers responded to the shooting, with some languishing in the hall for more than 70 minutes while the shooter barricaded himself in a classroom.
And some students are stuck in a tragic predicament — too traumatized to go to school but cannot rely into the remote learning option because both of their parents work in person.
"I talked to my son and daughter, and they said that they were afraid that if it happened again, they weren't going to be protected," Adam Martinez added. "There's no fencing at the junior high where my daughter would be going. There's no way that I'm gonna convince her to go when there's no fencing."