Opening of new Uvalde school marks ‘bittersweet day’ for families and town

From Texas Public Radio:

Nearly three and a half years after a gunman shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, a new school built to replace the site of the shooting is complete and ready to welcome students.

Students’ first day at the new Legacy Elementary will be Monday, October 20. But before they move in, Uvalde held a public ceremony to introduce the school to the community Friday. Earlier in the week, families of the victims were given a private tour. Some survivors and families of the victims also attended the public event.

Legacy Elementary is bright, colorful, and full of windows. But those windows are bullet resistant, and you need a key card to access the classrooms even after you’re let in the visitor’s entrance.

At the center of the school is a courtyard that looks up into a steel, two-story tree with two big branches and 19 smaller branches representing the two teachers and 19 students who died in the shooting.

Javier Cazares lost his nine-year old daughter Jackie in the shooting. He brushed away tears from his eyes as he stood in the courtyard looking at the tree memorial.

“There was a little girl in a dress (on the second floor next to the tree), and it just reminded me of my daughter,” Cazares said, adding that it was an emotional, bittersweet day.

“It is a great school for these children. Sadly, it took the lives of our children to make this school happen,” he said. “I’m happy these kids are going to enjoy this school for generations come. I just wish Jackie could have been there.”

Cazares said the symbolism of the tree memorial is beautiful, but they want to make sure the names of the victims are added to the tree “to remember who they were, other than just the tree itself.”

Cazares’ brother-in-law, Jesse Rizo, is now a member of the school board. Rizo said they plan to add the names, but they’re still deciding whether to put the names on the branches or the base of the tree.

“Somebody mentioned too that having QR codes would also be important,” Rizo said. “We know it because we live it, but 15 years from now it kind of fades, and so we want to make sure that people can click on something, and they can know about the children that ultimately paid the price for the building to be erected.”

Legacy Elementary was built through the fundraising efforts and guidance of a nonprofit called Uvalde CISD Moving Forward Foundation. The foundation raised $60 million from businesses, individuals and the state of Texas to pay for its construction.

On a tour of the school, the foundation’s executive director, Tim Miller, said there are many security features.

“You’ll see cameras throughout the building. There are door prop alarms, so if an exterior door is left open for a little bit of time an alarm will be sounded,” Miller said.

Each classroom wing has a door that can only be opened with a key card. Once in the classroom wing, windows from the outside and from the classroom into the hallway makes it possible to see in every direction.

That open view made Javier Cazares nervous until he heard the glass is bullet resistant.

“The windows are a little bit darker than a normal set of windows because the windows themselves are built to be very tough, and they also have a film on it to make them even tougher,” Miller said. “There are many design components for the building that makes it very, very, very difficult for one to do anybody any harm if they were to get into the building. And windows are definitely part of that.”

Miller said the many windows are an intentional choice to give teachers and staff sight lines to see in every direction.

“When you design a school, whether it’s an elementary, middle or high school, we always want to make sure there’s as much sight lines as possible, so there’s not places people can hide or people can do things,” Miller said.

The students chosen to perform during the school’s ribbon-cutting ceremony are currently at Morales Junior High School. At the time of the shooting three years ago, they were at Robb Elementary.

After the ceremony, a staff member said they were given the chance to give tours of the school. Instead, they opted to help break in the new playground, letting laughter and chatter fill the space for the first time.

That’s Uvalde CISD Board President Laura Perez’s hope for the new school: that it will be filled with the laughter of children.

Perez said she hopes the new school is a new beginning for the 600 third, fourth, and fifth graders starting school at Legacy on October 20.

“We owe it to Irma, to Eva, to the 19 children, right? We This is here because of them. So, build beautiful memories, tell the stories, and I can’t wait to hear the laughter in the hallways,” Perez said.

Perez is a nurse at Uvalde’s hospital, and she said she saw many of the victims come in on the day of the shooting May 24, 2022.

“I work in the operating room, that’s where we had deceased children,” Perez said. “It’s been hard for me to speak about it, because it’s not about me. It’s not about me at all.”

“The survivors, when I hear those children speak, I think (about) what they saw, what they smelt, what they heard. I mean, that’s forever. It’s forever because I know what I saw as an adult. I can’t imagine a kid going through that,” she said.

Perez said Legacy is a beautiful school that she hopes brings a measure of peace one day, but Uvalde is still in pain.

“I think people think, ‘Oh, we’re moved on.’ We’ve moved forward, but we’ll never forget,” Perez said.

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