Apalachee Students Head Back to School After Mass Shooting: ‘Felt So Weird’

Apalachee High School students are slowly easing back into the building where suspected gunman Colt Gray opened fire, killing two students and two teachers earlier this month.

“Just walking around, it felt so weird. As if I shouldn’t be there,” Apalachee High School student Isaiah Hooks told CNN on Tuesday. “It was really, really hard to think that something like this would happen. Even now, a couple weeks have passed, and it still doesn’t feel real that that happened to us.”

Students returned on Tuesday to the Winder, Georgia, school for half days “to help them ease back into the routine at a comfortable pace,” according to its website.

Full-time classes will resume on October 14. There will also be an increase in law enforcement in the school, along with additional counselors and therapy dogs.

Another student, Armando Martinez, 15, told CNN that he went back into the school for practice on Friday.

“It was hard being there myself given the fact that I was in that room where I was practicing, whenever it happened,” he said.

However, both teenagers agreed that the outpouring of support from the community helped them find the motivation to return to school.

“It was scary, but to know that we have a strong community – it’s unmatched. You should have seen the amount of support, the amount of people that was there to help us,” Martinez said.

“The thing that’s really motivating me is my friends, my family, my teammates and my coaches,” Hooks added. “I know that our community is going to be looking out for us.”

Apalachee High School hosted an open house on Monday for students and parents “to connect with teachers, see classmates, better understand what our remote location will look like, and ask questions,” its website states.

Barrow County Superintendent Dr. Dallas LeDuff said in a news release Monday that the district is thoughtfully considering all next steps.

“We know this isn’t easy,” he said. “We are all still navigating our way through adversity and emotions we may never fully understand. The safety and well-being of our students and staff remain our top priority. We are committed to holding discussions with our community and safety experts about additional layers of security.”

LeDuff added, “This open house is an important step in reopening Apalachee High School to be here for our students and staff who need us. I am proud and thankful to be a part of this compassionate and supportive community.”

J Hall, the hallway where Gray, 14, allegedly killed his four victims and injured nine others, will be inaccessible and remain closed for the rest of the school year.

Social Studies classes have been temporarily moved to a nearby Barrow County School System building. Buses will take students to and from the locations until new classroom pods arrive at AHS, which are expected in January. Students and parents attending Monday’s open house were encouraged to take the bus together to experience the quick trip.

Apalachee Alumni Respond

Layla Contreras is a Class of 2019 graduate from Apalachee High School. She formed the Change For Chee group on social media comprised of concerned alumni, parents, and community members calling for more safety measures before students return to school.

“My mom and sister were in the building that day [of the shooting]” Contreras, 23, told Newsweek about her substitute teacher mom and junior-year sibling, who she says returned to school on Tuesday.

“I’ve been hearing that it’s very eerie in the hallways and that the students are anxious because nothing has been different from the day it happened to today,” Contreras said. “The fact that they’ve used an off-site location like the old elementary school down the road to house a whole social studies department is very disconnecting.”

“They’re returning to school two weeks and six days since the shooting happened. That’s very fast,” she added.

The Barrow County School System is not providing remote learning at this time but encourages families to reach out to “connect them with options” if their student does not feel safe returning to school.

“All of the students have school-issued laptops and we did it during COVID. Why? What’s the rush to go back, especially without the public’s input?” Contreras asked Newsweek.

While Contreras says she and her Change For Chee group members appreciate the school’s extra police presence, therapy dogs, and additional mental health counselors available to students, they are calling for more preventive measures like clear backpacks and metal detectors.

Contreras pointed to Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith’s public statements Monday where he asked for the community’s continued patience as “there are safety measures in place, and just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

“There’s a clear lack of communication between the parents, the students, and the school system. We should know what those safety measures are,” Contreras told Newsweek. “We should be having a safety Town Hall. We should have an opportunity to speak with the school system before they were supposed to go back today.”

The Barrow County School System website states that it has implemented several immediate security measures, including increasing school resource officers and Georgia State Patrol officers’ presence on campuses. They say they will evaluate long-term plans with input from local, state, and federal law enforcement.

“In addition to the School Resource Officers who serve our schools, the Centegix Crisis Alert system, security vestibules, visitor management system, and digital locking systems, we will have additional law enforcement officer presence at each campus. We are also discussing possible additional layers of prevention and security and will release details about that as we can,” the website reads.

Even as students and teachers return to school on Tuesday, Contreras says Change For Chee’s work is far from over.

“We’re planning on talking at the Board of Education meeting on October 1 because that is the that is the right way to ask for these policy changes. We know that policy changes take time to implement, but so does the community’s healing process” she added.

“No community, school, or family should ever have to go through this horrific and traumatizing impact of the school shooting. Our community in Barrow County has been changed forever, and this will be a generational scar that we will have to live with.”

Expert Weighs In

Eileen Kennedy-Moore is a Princeton, New Jersey-based clinical psychologist and the author of books for parents, children, and mental health professionals.

Despite the “terror” Apalachee High School students are likely facing upon their return, Kennedy-Moore says quickly getting back into the swing of things can be beneficial.

“It is very, very important for their recovery to get back to normal, or as normal as we can make it, with their environment, the routines, and the predictability, ” she told Newsweek.

“That’s terrifying, but we know that avoidance makes anxiety grow, so we want them to have an ordinary, slightly boring social studies class. We want them to see their friends and their teachers going about their day. We want to emphasize that school is a place where there are a lot of people looking out for you and care about you, and we want to emphasize that it will get easier.”

“This is about giving our kids as much normalcy as we can. It’s not that they ought to be able to cope with this because it is wrong that they have to cope with this. This is something that no kid should have to deal with. Adults are letting them down,” Kennedy-Moore stressed.

“They should be afraid of, you know, their crush isn’t going to talk to them, or they didn’t study enough for the science test. Those are developmentally typical anxieties. They should not be worried ‘Am I going to die today if I go to school?'”

The Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem author said kids in this tough situation need “support,” ideally from “at least one adult who loves them and can is capable of taking care of them.” Some kids may need to see a guidance counselor or take medication.

“We want to offer our confidence that they can do this. They can go to their classes. They can be with their friends,” Kennedy-Moore said.

“With some kids. It might also be useful to talk about how your classmates need you there. They need to see you walking through the halls and doing ordinary things. If you show up, you are helping yourself and you’re also helping your classmates.”

Latest on Colt Gray And His Parents

Colt Gray remains behind bars as he is charged with murder and will be tried as an adult in the fatal Apalachee High School Shooting.

His mother, Marcee Gray, was indicted on Monday for elder abuse after she was accused of tying her mother, Deborah Polhamus, 73, to a chair and leaving her there for almost 24 hours, according to court documents shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Polhamus was allegedly found after one of Marcee’s sisters, who lives in Florida, was unable to contact her in November 2023, and asked a friend to check on her at her home. There, Polhamus was found taped by the wrists and ankles to a chair and was freed by the family friend.

She was arrested in Barrow County and faces charges of exploiting and intimidating a disabled adult or elderly person, false imprisonment, second-degree criminal damage to property, and theft, as reported by WSB-TV. If found guilty, she could face up to 20 years in prison.

In December 2023, she was returned to Ben Hill County, where she was granted a $5,300 bond and released in April.

Marcee Gray has a lengthy criminal history dating back to March 2007, which includes five vehicle-related misdemeanors such as reckless driving, improper right turn, and DUI, according to The Independent.

Marcee Gray’s ex-husband and Colt’s father, Colin Gray, was arrested following the school shooting. He faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children.

Colin Gray reportedly bought Colt the rifle he used in the school shooting as a Christmas gift even after the FBI visited their home for alleged online threats about shooting up a middle school.

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