Mansfield, Texas Superintendent Kimberley Cantu knew about school safety drills and building security, but she didn’t understand all of the logistical and interpersonal needs that arise after a school shooting until an unthinkable tragedy happened in her district.
The morning of Oct. 6, 2021, a student opened fire in the hallway at Mansfield’s Timberview High School, wounding two teachers and a student. For Cantu, the unexpected decisions started right away.
“You have that initial, probably 15 to 30 minutes as a team going, ‘OK, wait, we have protocol,’” she said. “You’re in shock when you hear [news of a school shooting]. It’s sort of like the clouds clear and you just go to work asking, ‘What’s our very best next step?’”
The district’s plan called for relocating students to a nearby performing arts center. What it didn’t account for: The teachers who’d just survived a traumatic event weren’t prepared to supervise a roomful of anxious students. Within hours, hundreds of volunteers showed up at the family reunification site, and administrators quickly appointed an ad hoc organizer to determine if and how they could help.
As more unknowns emerged, Cantu knew she needed to talk to someone who could relate. She texted David Schuler, the executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, who quickly connected her with Janet Robinson, who led the Newtown, Conn., district during the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The insights she shared over the phone became a lifeline for Cantu in the days, months, and years of recovery that followed.
“If I didn’t have Dave’s number, I don’t know what I would have done,” Cantu said. “There are people who have gone through this that didn’t have that support.”
Three and a half years later, Cantu is part of a new effort to offer that same support to other superintendents facing the same challenges.
Supporting superintendents during school crises
The Superintendent Response and Recovery Network, newly organized by AASA, offers district leaders a number they can call as they respond to unthinkable crises, quickly connecting them with Robinson and Cheri Lovre, a school crisis expert who worked with schools following the 1999 Columbine High School shooting and the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City.
Freeman, Wash., Superintendent Randy Russell will co-lead the network with Cantu, drawing upon his experiences following a 2017 school shooting, when a 15-year-old student shot and killed a peer in a school hallway.
“To superintendents navigating a school crisis: You now belong to a club that none of us ever wanted to join,” Russell said in a statement on the network’s website after it was announced. “How you lead through the next 10 days will determine the next 10 years for your district.”
The effort complements the Principal Recovery Network, a separate group of school leaders organized by the National Association of Secondary School Principals in 2019.
“What we discovered in talking to people who have been through this is that it takes years [to recover],” Schuler said. “Anytime something happens [in another school], there is a trigger in that entire community. We needed to put a network and system together to help support our amazing colleagues and their communities.”
The group’s website hosts resources from AASA and other organizations, like the U.S. Secret Service, on threat assessment, forming district crisis-response teams, and other ways to prepare for and respond to campus emergencies. Network leaders hope to develop additional resources of their own, Cantu said.
In the early days following the Timberview High School shooting, Cantu decided to document every step of the district’s response. She hopes to share those hard-learned lessons with others.
Among them: Educators must prepare for all of the everyday reminders that can stoke anxiety and grief in students and teachers. Students who were freshmen during the shooting are now seniors, Cantu said, and they often experience unexpected emotions when photos of their school are used in news updates about school safety.
School staff also had to shepherd students through a complex surge of emotions in January when the student who survived the Timberview incident died in an unrelated act of community violence.
“That stirred up a lot,” Cantu said.
Though her district brought in grief counselors for students and staff after the 2021 crisis, it wasn’t until six weeks later that Cantu realized she hadn’t debriefed with her senior leadership staff.
“I called them all in a room and said, ‘how are you doing?’ How are you feeling?,’” she said, adding that she’d encourage other district leaders to tend to their own emotional needs much earlier than she did.
“We want to offer superintendents someone who will stay on the phone during these moments,” Cantu said. “Even just to listen.”
