Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'My Life Is Not Normal. It Will Never Be Like Before': A Year After Parkland, A Community Still Mourns
The name 鈥淧arkland鈥 has become a shorthand for the tragedy that many hoped would mark the beginning of the end of school massacres. But ask the survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in more quiet moments about the awful year since last Feb. 14, and they tell you a different, more personal story. About innocence lost. Dreams undone. Grief delayed. (Mazzei, 2/13)
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre a year ago renewed the national debate on guns and school safety, turned some victims' parents and surviving students into political activists and at least temporarily ended the local sheriff's career. But Thursday's anniversary will primarily be about remembering the 14 students and three staff members who died in the third high-profile mass shooting in Florida since 2016. (Spencer, 2/14)
For a few weeks after their daughter Carmen was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, a week shy of her 17th birthday, April and Phil Schentrup could barely leave the house. They didn鈥檛 go to the vigils; they didn鈥檛 watch the CNN town hall on U.S. gun policy; they couldn鈥檛 even go to work. 鈥淲e were just trying to get through a normal day, trying to get out of bed,鈥 April told me when I spoke to her over the phone in January. (Deutch, 2/13)
In the despair after the Parkland school shooting, a single devastating moment shook so many Americans 鈥 when grieving mom Lori Alhadeff took a reporter鈥檚 microphone, looked at the camera and shared her pain with the world. 鈥淭he gunman, a crazy person, just walks into the school, knocks down the window of my child鈥檚 door and starts shooting, shooting her聽and killing her,鈥 Alhadeff said, her outrage growing with each word. (Adely, 2/13)
Events on Thursday, including art displays, tree plantings and candlelight vigils, will honor those who died. In Broward County, schools plan to observe a moment of silence at 10:17 a.m., the 17 representing the victims who were killed and the additional 17 people wounded. Some cities in the area plan the moment of silence at 2:21 p.m., the time the gunman first fired bullets in the rampage. Members of March For Our Lives, the student-led group that organized demonstrations after the shooting, said they planned to go dark鈥攐nline and offline鈥攆or four days starting Thursday. 鈥淟ike many in the Parkland community, March For Our Lives will be spending time with friends and family, remembering those we lost,鈥 the group said in a statement. (Campo-Flores, 2/14)
Kimberly Krawczyk says she would do anything to keep her students safe. A year ago Thursday, the Parkland, Fla., high school math teacher barricaded students behind her classroom door during one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. But one of the unconventional responses that Broward County Public Schools said could stop another tragedy has left her deeply unnerved: an experimental artificial-intelligence system that would surveil her students closer than ever before. (Harwell, 2/13)
Some students have difficulty trusting classmates outside their circle. Parents say interactions with school staff are more impersonal. Teachers worry that added security detracts from learning. The Parkland massacre a year ago upended school life in Florida. In the year since a gunman fatally shot 14 students and three school staffers, the state's districts have reshaped the K-12 experience, adopting new rules for entering campus, hiring more police and holding frequent safety drills. Some schools trained teams of armed employees to confront attackers. (Gomez Licon, 2/14)