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UVALDE — Brianna Gonzales, fresh off her nursing shift, sat quietly alongside her two sons in Uvalde High School’s auditorium this past week as school district officials laid out for parents new safety measures for the upcoming school year.
Gonzales has decided to keep her two sons, a kindergartner and a fifth grader, in the district. But it wasn’t the easiest decision. Her oldest was at Robb Elementary on May 24, the day an armed teenager entered the school and killed two teachers and 19 children. Fortunately, she had taken her son home before the shooter entered the building.
But a summer of conflicting government narratives has set Uvalde parents on edge, particularly after a state report showed that 376 law enforcement officers showed up at Robb on May 24 but did not engage the shooter for more than an hour.
Parents are now trying to plan for the back-to-school season and facing tough choices over their children’s education and safety. Some are keeping their kids in the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District when school starts on Sept. 6. Some are choosing homeschooling and others are looking at private schools.
“I just didn’t see what the point of going to another district would do for me,” Gonzales said. “If it could happen here, it could happen there.”
Credit:
Evan L’Roy/The Texas Tribune
Gonzales, like other parents in this working-class community, doesn’t have the time or money to look for other options right now. She has a full-time job and she’s usually up earlier to get herself and her kids ready for the day. Their dad works out of town and is usually home only during the weekends, she said. That rules out trying to get her kids to nearby districts or pay for private school or even consider online school.
“COVID affected them a lot and I saw how that affected their education and I don’t want them to have to go to virtual again,” she said. “I don’t have the time of day to do things with them for school so I feel like I would be failing them on that part of their education.”
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Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/15/uvalde-parents-back-to-school/