Superintendent of Schools Issues Statement Regarding School Shootings After School Shooter Killed 19 Students and 2 Teachers in Texas
Statement Issued by County Superintendent to Educators:
Humboldt County Superintendent of Schools, Michael Davies-Hughes shared the following statement with the educators of Humboldt County this morning.
To my fellow Humboldt County educators:
As an educational community and as Americans we find ourselves lost for words and deeply saddened by yesterday’s senseless school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left nineteen young children and two teachers dead. It’s shocking and heartbreaking. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the parents, caregivers, and families of the victims whose lives are forever changed by unimaginable loss and unfathomable grief.
When the news first broke yesterday about this terrible tragedy, we also witnessed the predictable reigniting of the debate over gun laws in America. It is a debate that happens every time our country experiences a mass shooting, but it has not brought us any closer to a resolution. Today, instead of focusing on the politics and the concomitant rancor, as educators we can and must focus on what we do best, taking care of our students. Our primary responsibility is to provide our students with a safe learning environment, and it is a responsibility we carry out with excellence day in and day out. Two and a half years of successfully serving students in the midst of a global pandemic has proven that we can do hard things.
Today is a hard day for us all, and as you peer at the American flag flying at half-staff outside your school’s entrance, I encourage you to not only be reflective about the heartbreak at Robb Elementary but also resolute about your commitment to the well-being of every child that crosses the threshold of your school building. Today, we share in the grief of our country while we stand united in our belief that as administrators, teachers, classified and support staff, our work matters, and the impact of our work will make for a better tomorrow.
Below, are some resources you may find helpful:
- Parent Guidelines for Helping Youth After the Recent Shooting (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network – English/Spanish)
- Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Parents and Teachers (National Association of School Psychologists)
- Helping Children Cope with Frightening News (Child Mind Institute)
- Coping in the Aftermath of a Shooting (American Counseling Association)
- Trauma and Disaster Mental Health (American Counseling Association)
- Teaching in the Wake of Violence (Facing History and Ourselves)
- Supporting Employees in Coping with Community Violence (Employee Assistance for Education –EASE)
Michael
Michael Davies-Hughes
Superintendent of Schools
Humboldt County Superintendent of Schools, Michael Davies-Hughes shared the following statement with the educators of Humboldt County this morning.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
As a former elementary school teacher from a family full of teachers, I must say this horror is happening far too often.
This world is full of evil people living among a world of decent wonderful people. Because of this, it is important to take action. Because evil people don’t follow any laws, legislation is pointless. This country has spent billions on dollars sending troops, weapons and ammunition to fight for the freedom and safety of other countries. Politicians, celebrities and other wealthy people have armed security personnel, walls, alarm systems, etc. Even some universities have their own police departments. Yet, not one dime is spent on the protection of children and teachers. Local PD and SO personnel have a much too slow response time. It is time for the government to actually spend just as much money protecting our schools, malls and other places of mass gatherings from these crimes as they spend on foreign protection – possibly more.
I would absolutely immediately take a position in campus security. When I was a teacher I would have laid my life down to protect any of my students and feel the same way today.
How many more times do we have to bury our future before the obvious need for change happens?
The majority of mass shooters bought their guns legally. So this continuous insistence that laws can’t stop this simply isn’t supported by evidence.
Look at Australia as an example where restricting guns certainly has seem to have worked.
With all due respect, this 18 year old didn’t buy the handgun legally as he was not yet 21. If my memory serves me correctly, the guns used at Sandy Hook were stolen and family murdered and were not legally possessed guns by the shooter. Please get the facts right.
The facts are that the guns were legally purchased either by the assailant or family members that gave them access to the guns.
These typically aren’t people out buying black market guns or stealing them in burglaries and yet the pro-2A folks keep insisting that’s where the problem is so no need to enact new gun laws.
A voice in the wilderness Tim, a voice in the wilderness.
What does an 18 year old kid need with 2 assault rifles with high capacity magazines. That should have been a red flag there.
Don’t you mean an 18 year old man guaranteed his right to bear arms inherent in the 2nd Amendment? No laws or norms were broken when the young man purchased those firearms and the young man passed the background check to obtain those firearms. What constitutes high capacity magazines? A well-trained individual with practice can refill the tube, chamber or cylinder of any rifle, shotgun or handgun very rapidly, especially if not receiving counter fire.
Once this individual chose to shoot his own grandmother in the face and then move on to murder children, laws were broken, and only then. That is when the red flag was thrown.
There is also no such thing as an “assault rifle”. Any weapon can be labeled “assault”. If I shot you with an air pump BB gun and fired for affect, I assure you, you would feel as if you’d been assaulted.
Same if I plunged a dagger into your abdomen. Any weapon used in such a manner can be labeled an “assault weapon.” At such time, the object became an implement of assault.
Your argument is about assumptions.
Alf, the 18-year-old mentally unstable bought two AR style rifles legally in Texas. With the first AR he purchased 375 rounds of ammo, and then went back the next day and purchased another AR. He had no criminal record, so the guns sold to him were legally obtained along with some 30 round clips. I am at a loose of words as why he would go to the elementary school, was not stopped by the school police, and then he ran to another door and went inside. He breached a classroom full of little children and opened fire. He killed 19 kids and two wonderful teachers that put themselves between him and the shooter. They gave their lives trying so hard to protect the children. Thank God a US Border Patrol agent breached the door, was shot twice and still managed to kill that little bastard! Now you can watch the 50 Senators sit on their hands and do nothing! As a country we owe these little ones and the teachers by starting a better system for school protection and weeding out nut cases getting their hands on guns. It won’t ever completely get guns off the streets, but we have to start some place. May God bless all those little ones, the teachers and all the families that have had their lives turned inside out!!! My heart is broken with complete sadness.
Call it evolution of society.
My friend it is the evolution of mentally disturbed people in our society. We have let this go on for way too long. Change needs to be the evolution of our lacking damn government that will try their very best to help our society by laying some solid groundwork for reasonable gun regulations and more help for the mentally ill that are just cast aside! I hope to hell it will start now! President Biden’s limp speech was a joke!
If they had security guard he would’ve went somewhere else. He knew the elementary school didnt have people who have fire arms. Duh.
There was an armed security guard and 2 additional cops. The shooter still got into the school. What was that you were saying about assumptions?
The security guards were armed. Why they chose to let that little bastard, who was carrying an AR run away from them I really don’t understand. They should have tried to take him into custody or shot him. I guess they were cowards!!! Duh right back at you Jabba!
100%
Get the facts! He turned 18 last Tuesday and Legally purchased one AR-15 and 365 rounds of ammunition the next day LEGALLY. Two days later he went back and purchased another AR-15, LEGALLY. Four days later he walked into a school and slaughtered 19 ten year olds, two teachers and wounded many more.
New Zealand two
It’s our failed mental health system and professionals, should’ve red flagged these psychos
The shooter was an animal abuser. Always a red flag!! It’s amazing how these loosers slip through the cracks. Bad parenting! a kid that is abusing animals needs to be put in a mental hospital.
Australia did not have an inherent right to bear arms enshrined in their constitution. The only way an example like Australia will work in the US is if an amendment to the constitution is ratified by 3/4 of the US states. Until that happens, this bickering back and forth is pointless. States and municipalities pass gun control laws and those laws are challenged in courts. Many are overturned as an infringement on the 2nd amendment. I suspect we will see a New York law overturned by the SCOTUS in the next few weeks that will drastically curtail how State and local governments can impose such restrictions.
You used Australia as an example, I’d like to use Chicago as a counter argument. Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country yet perennially has some of the highest incidents of gun violence.
Securing and fortifying the schools is the answer. As is a focus on mental health.
We protect our borders with guns. We protect our airports with guns. We protect our courthouses with guns. We protect our government with guns. We protect our interests around the world with guns. We protect our banks with guns. We protect our celebrities with guns.
We protect our children with gun free zones. When that doesn’t work we call people with guns to save them.
Something is wrong, and frankly I’m getting tired of talking about it.
Firearms ownership in America has become politicized and all the arguing about it takes attention away from the real issues: violence and mental illness. People are dying as a result.
My opinion is that we need to empower responsible Americans to protect themselves and others while we work to figure out why so many in our society have become so sick.
Politicians using this tragedy to further divide us clearly hasn’t helped, and we need to try something different.
Spot on. Thousands of retired police officers and retired military want jobs in our schools protecting our children and maintaining a safe and secure setting.
They had armed Security there. Young men with training still couldn’t stop this little creep
What kind of training did they have that they didn’t engage him? Why instead did they turn and run with their tail between their legs? If guns are not allowed at school and a stranger comes holding an AR, what part of doing whatever it takes to get him secured did they not understand? Clearly they were untrained idiots.
Yes they did and the security didn’t follow their own policy…
Very true country!! Librals are Gung hoe to lay blame. That’s all they can do. Easy to point out the problem. Like it’s the unvaccinated who spread covid. They actually think that!!
Southern Humboldt Unified School District was offered a full time officer 2 years ago. The position would have been funded by Measure Z money. The district refused the offer.
Bad people do very bad things because good people do nothing. We need good people, well trained and well armed at every school every day, period.
Alf, there was an armed school police officer and 2 Uvalde city police officers there that could not stop the shooter from getting into the school.
Your proposed solution simply hasn’t worked. It didn’t work at Stoneman Douglas High school in Florida and elsewhere.
For reference, there are around 130,000 K-12 schools in the US.
The kid should have been fighting the Russians in Ukraine
when i was in school in so. cal.(50′-70’s), we had cops on campus, some people may have mis-believed they were not needed, represented ‘ the oppression’ of kids rights to not be monitored or ‘profiled’, or they just didn’t like cops. unfortunately, they are needed, and the ‘defund’ the cop shop b.s., is b.s. bring them back on campus, there is a lot of sketchy wack jobs out there, and everyone, especially kids need to be protected.
(i realize of course, some people disagree)
It’s time for us all to consider our luck, lives and loved ones. Embrace and give thanks. We live in a cold, unpredictable world and it is getting evermore so horrendous.
My high school parking lot had pick up trucks with rifles in the gun rack during hunting season. They were in plain sight. We’d go hunting right from school but never considered using our weapons on a student. What changed?
A Race to the Moral and Ethical Bottom
“Unchristian” is the word that best describes our race to the bottom. Worldliness has resulted in immodesty, pornography, dancing, thefts, drugs, immorality, rapes, child abuse and divorce. Righteous Lot was vexed by the worldliness of his day and we should also be vexed by the worldliness of our day. (2 Peter 2:7-8)
walnutstreetchurchofchrist.org › a_race_to_the_bottomA Race To The Bottom – Walnut Street Church of Christ
Oh no not dancing! The church itself( not just the Catholics either) is responsible for an unimaginable number of rapists and child molesters. They seem to actually encourage it by relocating offenders to different churches and covering up the crimes.
As a Christian myself I think it’s asinine to claim that the church has any moral high ground.
You mention the Catholic Church and they’re dealing with the pedophile issues. Don’t throw away the entire barrel of apples because of a few bad ones…We don’t have those issues in the Baptist Church. You don’t sound like a Christian.
You mention the Catholic Church and they’re dealing with the pedophile issues. Don’t throw away the entire barrel of apples because of a few bad ones…We don’t have those issues in the Baptist Church. You don’t sound like a Christian.
walnutstreetchurchofchrist .org › a_race_to_the_bottomA Race To The Bottom – Walnut Street Church of Christ
Uh, the Baptist church is in the news for THOUSANDS of instances of sexual abuse. You might want to check some news outside of RHBB for the past several days.
Did you miss the part where i said not just the Catholics. And lol ya the baptists are not looking good right now.
How do I not sound like a Christian?! Is it because i don’t have my head buried in the sand and am aware of the multiple moral failings of organized Christianity? Which is especially disgusting to me since these people love to go on and on about the moral failings of others?
Keep throwing stones in your glass house you just built yourself…
Oops meant to reply to country Joe.
Don’t throw away the entire barrel of apples because of a few bad ones…You can find issues everywhere you look but I’ll stick with the church.
Could you please provide proof for the THOUSANDS of instances of sexual abuse? The Catholic Church should allow Nuns and Priests to marry.
Religion or the lack of has absolutely nothing to fucking do with it! 99% of ALL the Christians I have known throughout me life and I am no youngster has been a lying, thieving, malicious and or perverted human being. Mostly white men. And I have traveled and worked the bloody world war zones for decades from end to end.
Society at large has created very unhappy people both children and adults by it’s very cut throat nature since the beginning of human societies. The only way to stop those unhappy disturbed folks is to take the weapons away from them. Nothing else can fix this shit.
Of course I want to keep me guns. I had to take safety courses that required a test of sorts when I got me first as a youngster. Everyone should be required to do so with every purchase right after passing the ID finger print, dna and psych check. If you can’t pass those then you can’t have a gun!
I quit reading your post after the first filthy sentence…
DANCING! Holy shit Batman!
Are you stoned?
Maybe re-route $50 billion wasted on Ukraine and put it towards school security.
I homeschooled instead.
19 children and two adults were killed in Uvalde, Texas by an 18-year-old dropout.
22 children and 52 adults were killed in Waco, Texas by our government.
Yup. Certainly the application of concern is misguided. The plebs keep begging the government to keep them safe. Events like Waco and innumerable wars clearly illustrates that the government is the real monster.
Thurston High School.
Columbine High School.
Heritage High School.
Deming Middle School.
Fort Gibson Middle School.
Buell Elementary School.
Lake Worth Middle School.
University of Arkansas.
Junipero Serra High School.
Santana High School.
Bishop Neumann High School.
Pacific Lutheran University.
Granite Hills High School.
Lew Wallace High School.
Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.
Appalachian School of Law.
Washington High School.
Conception Abbey.
Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
University of Arizona.
Lincoln High School.
John McDonogh High School.
Red Lion Area Junior High School.
Case Western Reserve University.
Rocori High School.
Ballou High School.
Randallstown High School.
Bowen High School.
Red Lake Senior High School.
Harlan Community Academy High School.
Campbell County High School.
Milwee Middle School.
Roseburg High School.
Pine Middle School.
Essex Elementary School.
Duquesne University.
Platte Canyon High School.
Weston High School.
West Nickel Mines School.
Joplin Memorial Middle School.
Henry Foss High School.
Compton Centennial High School.
Virginia Tech.
Success Tech Academy.
Miami Carol City Senior High School.
Hamilton High School.
Louisiana Technical College.
Mitchell High School.
E.O. Green Junior High School.
Northern Illinois University.
Lakota Middle School.
Knoxville Central High School.
Willoughby South High School.
Henry Ford High School.
University of Central Arkansas.
Dillard High School.
Dunbar High School.
Hampton University.
Harvard College.
Larose-Cut Off Middle School.
International Studies Academy.
Skyline College.
Discovery Middle School.
University of Alabama.
DeKalb School.
Deer Creek Middle School.
Ohio State University.
Mumford High School.
University of Texas.
Kelly Elementary School.
Marinette High School.
Aurora Central High School.
Millard South High School.
Martinsville West Middle School.
Worthing High School.
Millard South High School.
Highlands Intermediate School.
Cape Fear High School.
Chardon High School.
Episcopal School of Jacksonville.
Oikos University.
Hamilton High School.
Perry Hall School.
Normal Community High School.
University of South Alabama.
Banner Academy South.
University of Southern California.
Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Apostolic Revival Center Christian School.
Taft Union High School.
Osborn High School.
Stevens Institute of Business and Arts.
Hazard Community and Technical College.
Chicago State University.
Lone Star College-North.
Cesar Chavez High School.
Price Middle School.
University of Central Florida.
New River Community College.
Grambling State University.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School.
Ronald E. McNair Discovery Academy.
North Panola High School.
Carver High School.
Agape Christian Academy.
Sparks Middle School.
North Carolina A&T State University.
Stephenson High School.
Brashear High School.
West Orange High School.
Arapahoe High School.
Edison High School.
Liberty Technology Magnet High School.
Hillhouse High School.
Berrendo Middle School.
Purdue University.
South Carolina State University.
Los Angeles Valley College.
Charles F. Brush High School.
University of Southern California.
Georgia Regents University.
Academy of Knowledge Preschool.
Benjamin Banneker High School.
D. H. Conley High School.
East English Village Preparatory Academy.
Paine College.
Georgia Gwinnett College.
John F. Kennedy High School.
Seattle Pacific University.
Reynolds High School.
Indiana State University.
Albemarle High School.
Fern Creek Traditional High School.
Langston Hughes High School.
Marysville Pilchuck High School.
Florida State University.
Miami Carol City High School.
Rogers State University.
Rosemary Anderson High School.
Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
Frederick High School.
Tenaya Middle School.
Bethune-Cookman University.
Pershing Elementary School.
Wayne Community College.
J.B. Martin Middle School.
Southwestern Classical Academy.
Savannah State University.
Harrisburg High School.
Umpqua Community College.
Northern Arizona University.
Texas Southern University.
Tennessee State University.
Winston-Salem State University.
Mojave High School.
Lawrence Central High School.
Franklin High School.
Muskegon Heights High School.
Independence High School.
Madison High School.
Antigo High School.
University of California-Los Angeles.
Jeremiah Burke High School.
Alpine High School.
Townville Elementary School.
Vigor High School.
Linden McKinley STEM Academy.
June Jordan High School for Equity.
Union Middle School.
Mueller Park Junior High School.
West Liberty-Salem High School.
University of Washington.
King City High School.
North Park Elementary School.
North Lake College.
Freeman High School.
Mattoon High School.
Rancho Tehama Elementary School.
Aztec High School.
Wake Forest University.
Italy High School.
NET Charter High School.
Marshall County High School.
Sal Castro Middle School.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Great Mills High School.
Central Michigan University.
Huffman High School.
Frederick Douglass High School.
Forest High School.
Highland High School.
Dixon High School.
Santa Fe High School.
Noblesville West Middle School.
University of North Carolina Charlotte.
STEM School Highlands Ranch.
Edgewood High School.
Palm Beach Central High School.
Providence Career & Technical Academy.
Fairley High School (school bus).
Canyon Springs High School.
Dennis Intermediate School.
Florida International University.
Central Elementary School.
Cascade Middle School.
Davidson High School.
Prairie View A & M University.
Altascocita High School.
Central Academy of Excellence.
Cleveland High School.
Robert E. Lee High School.
Cheyenne South High School.
Grambling State University.
Blountsville Elementary School.
Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus).
Prescott High School.
College of the Mainland.
Wynbrooke Elementary School.
UNC Charlotte.
Riverview Florida (school bus).
Second Chance High School.
Carman-Ainsworth High School.
Williwaw Elementary School.
Monroe Clark Middle School.
Central Catholic High School.
Jeanette High School.
Eastern Hills High School.
DeAnza High School.
Ridgway High School.
Reginald F. Lewis High School.
Saugus High School.
Pleasantville High School.
Waukesha South High School.
Oshkosh High School.
Catholic Academy of New Haven.
Bellaire High School.
North Crowley High School.
McAuliffe Elementary School.
South Oak Cliff High School.
Texas A&M University-Commerce.
Sonora High School.
Western Illinois University.
Oxford High School.
Robb Elementary School.
When will it ever stop?????
Do you realize our population?? Look at our movies, music, video games, when will it stop. It won’t. It’s only going to get worse until we all are armed.
No movie makes money these days unless there are copious amounts of murder, rape, sex and violence…Kids kill hundreds of people a day in their ultra-violent video games. Drug use is rampant. The left is on a race to the ethical and moral bottom and has been for decades. We reap what we sew when our children are force fed violence 24/7/365. All this must change before we can even think about stopping the violence.
Difficult to think this. With the vast number of firearms in public hands and a mandate like New Zealand or Canada to turn in firearms very unlikely in the USA. It might be time to train some willing school staff to carry firearms on campus.
Thoughts? Dead people don’t think anymore. Prayers? Praying didn’t save any of these kids and adults. Prayers won’t bring them back. Thoughts and prayers are for the survivors and the relatives and others affected by the school shootings.
Definitely right about America not giving up our firearms.
Back in the early 2000s Eureka High School hired ARMED security to work all the football games. I guess keeping sports events safe was a priority, but the rest of high school wasn’t that important. It’s time everything to do with school is important, not just sports.
Michael Davies-Hughes, you are quite arrogant and ignorant to make such a self-serving statement that is empty of facts, full of self praise, and unapologetically without empathy. If you think that you do an excellent job of keeping each school in your district safe and free of a school shooting then please explain with facts exactly what you have done, how much of our tax dollars you have spent towards this and to exactly where. Have you replaced windows, doors, locks? Have you purchased security systems for each school? Have you purchased Emergency and communication systems throughout the schools? What trainings have you done for an active shooter? Have you allocated funds for security employees? Etc., etc, etc! A school shooting can and does take place everywhere in this country. The fact that your district has NOT had one is not gratitude owed to you but, rather by the grace of God go go you. Schools are a government agency. Schools are run by Federal, State, and local legislation with citizens tax dollars. How dare you say our children’s safety and our children being murdered in their schools is NOT political. It is absolutely political. Oh! Weren’t you elected in a political mechanism called VOTING and you campaigning as a politician? What a disgraceful public show of Arrogance . It’s obvious that you are a gun toting, NRA card carrying, right winged extremist! A high school student purchased two AR-15’s and 365 rounds of ammunition last Wednesday the day after his 18th birthday LEGALLY and six days later he slaughtered 19 ten year old children, two school teachers, and wounded several more. Did you hear that? LEGALLY with legislation that allowed him to. Legislation is political. If my uterus is political then so are your guns.