A Teacher’s Eyewitness Account From Inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Guest Blog By: Ivy Schamis, Brand Ambassador and Storyteller- CERA Software, Inc.

As we approach the four year tragicversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., I pose this question: Has anything changed to make us feel safe again?

I started my teaching adventures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the fall of 2001. My first Open House event was scheduled for 9/11/2001 – a day we learned our world was not impervious. As time moved forward in our suburban corner of Broward County, it felt as if we were wrapped in a warm blanket of safety. I taught at an excellent school, in a supportive community with superb students and colleagues.?

As the community expanded, our school added an additional two buildings in 2009 and I was lucky enough to move into room 1214 on the first floor of the 1200 building. Eventually I would refer to that classroom as “my happy place” as I spent so many enjoyable hours teaching and learning in there.?

For many years, I taught Advanced Placement Human Geography and International Relations, and in 2014 I helped create The Holocaust Studies Program, a full year academic elective for juniors and seniors. History of the Holocaust became a very popular class as students learned a lot about the world and themselves. We decorated the classroom with maps of Europe and posters with quotes from Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel, in addition to a large yellow banner given to me by a Holocaust Survivor that read, We Will Never Forget. Many notable guest speakers enlightened us in that classroom, including WWII Veterans, Liberators, Authors, Filmmakers, Educators, a Rwandan Genocide Survivor and numerous Holocaust Survivors from various backgrounds.?

February 14, 2018 was a special day at MSD because it was Valentine’s Day. The mood was festive as students carried balloons, flowers, and candy, sharing some of that love with their teachers. A box of Valentine’s candy with puppies on the cover still sits on my desk, frozen in time, given to me by Ashton, a lovely young man in my 4th period Holocaust Class.?

The Winter Olympics were taking place in PyeongChang, South Korea at the time and I wanted to make it relevant to what we were learning, so the lesson would be about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The students worked on an activity through iwitness, a program created by the USC Shoah Foundation. On their laptops, the students listened to testimony by Margaret Lambert, a German Jewish track and field athlete, whom the Nazis prevented from taking part in the games. They completed the activity and we were getting ready to discuss the Jesse Owens story. I wrote some names on the Recordex Board and asked if the students were familiar with any of them.?

Nicholas, a handsome young man who recently shared with the class that he earned a swimming scholarship to the University of Indianapolis, raised his hand and told us he knew who Adi Dassler was. The class was quite impressed that he knew Adi Dassler, the German shoemaker who made Jesse Owens’ track shoes, was the creator of Adidas. He also knew that Rudy, Adi’s brother, created the Puma athletic wear company.?

As we all gave an impressive look to Nicholas, we became startled by very loud shots that rang out in the hallway. Although we had never had an Active Shooter Drill at MSD, the students instinctively knew to jump out of their desks and try to find a place to hide. It was a small square classroom, full of furniture, a Recordex Board, a laptop cart, no walk-in closet, a wall full of windows and a metal door with a large glass window running down the center all the way to the handle. The door was locked, but the glass was not bulletproof.??

Did we just hear gunshots outside the classroom door? What do we do now? As the students scattered around the perimeter of the room trying to take cover somehow, two girls hid in the well of my desk and others tried to get behind a file cabinet, but everything was happening so quickly, there was no time to try to organize.?

Kelly, a darling senior with pink hair, motioned for me to come crouch with her on the floor by my desk. She said I reminded her of her mom and she wanted to be close to me. Within seconds, shots were being fired into the glass panel in the door. Students began screaming and one student started to record video on his phone in order to show his mom this crazy active shooter drill we must be having. It was not a drill.?

Bullets were flying around the classroom, hitting whatever was in their path. From my vantage point, I could see the handle of the door and I was waiting for a hand to reach in and open the door from the inside. I knew we were sitting ducks with no way out, but I thought to myself, “Who is doing this? What can I do?”?

I realized that whoever it was, must have so much hate in their heart and as the adult in the classroom, I decided I would stand up and say, “We Love You.” I didn’t know if that would help, but in a classroom where we talk about combating hate, maybe this person needed to be loved. I didn’t get that chance, as the shooter moved on to my friend Ronit’s AP Psychology class across the hall.?

My amazing, mature students sat as quiet as can be with all the carnage around them. We feared the shooter returning as we later learned he did, but decided to move on because it appeared as if we all perished.?

The cell phone service in Room 1214 has always been unreliable and 2/14 was no exception. Many of us could not reach 9-1-1 and no one was going to risk standing up to get to the landline sitting on a small bookshelf. We listened quietly as the shots rang out from different parts of the building, not knowing who was in the shooter’s path, but I did know we were not prepared and I do remember thinking – where are the Police & Fire Rescue?

Kelly, the young lady huddled with me, was able to get a tiny signal when she called 9-1-1 and she was able to relay that we had injuries in Room 1214. We all felt helpless and unprepared as we sat still waiting for the SWAT Team. A junior, Sid, looked over at me and whispered, “Mrs. Schamis, are we going to die today?”. I replied in a whisper, “Nope. Not today.” Daniel, another junior, stood up to look at the scene in the classroom and began reciting the Shema, the key principal of faith in Judaism, which was recited by many European Jews as they faced death in the Holocaust. That actually scared me.

A short time later, which actually felt much longer, we heard loud voices in the hallways calling, “SWAT.” We remained still and silent as the officer reached in the broken window and opened the door. After that, all I remember is chaos. The physically uninjured were told not to look down and to leave the building as we stepped out of the classroom next to children’s bodies lying in the hallway. Students just ran haphazard along Holmberg and Pine Island Road. Although I could have walked five miles to my home, I stayed near the school to see if I could help. There was no direction and very little communication.?

The more I found out about the events leading up to the shooting and the response during the shooting, the more frustrated and angry I became. Seventeen amazing people should still be here. Nicholas Dworet, the swimmer who knew Adi Dassler, was murdered in my class, along with Helena Ramsay who took Holocaust Class so she could be my student again. I had her as a Freshman and she came on a trip to Europe that I chaperoned during Spring Break 2016. Aaron Feis was my son’s football coach and was the bus driver/ chaperone to field trips I took with my Holocaust Class to Student Awareness Day in Broward County. He always wanted to chat about WWII history with me. Carmen Schentrup’s dream was to help find a cure for ALS, a disease my dad now suffers from. I sat at her Wake until the very end, watching her mom and dad say goodbye to her as they closed the casket. I will never forget that.?

It is time to be proactive and not just reactive to these situations. The reaction in Parkland was a failure. We thought the activists from Parkland would change everything, but unfortunately, mass shootings only got worse. When I learned about CERA, connecting Police and Medical Responders with everyday citizens in real time, I felt this was something that could have helped us. Before the next tragedy strikes a school or a mall or a music venue, it is imperative that preventative measures are taken to have a response that will save lives.