Teacher who survived Florida shooting speaks to IU education students
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WISH) — More than 200 future teachers gathered on Indiana University’s campus to hear what the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, was like through a teacher’s eyes.
The IU undergraduates and staff met inside a lecture hall and two overflow rooms to hear from Katherina Posada, an IU alumna and 10th grade English teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Posada finished her degree from IU in 2003 and returned to her alma mater to speak to the next generation of teachers and share her experience.
“I really want to make sure something good comes out of this horrible event,” said Posada. “In many ways, I don’t think it will ever be the same.”
Posada explained hearing the fire alarm go off for the second time on that Valentine’s Day. The school had run a drill earlier in the day, but remembering the school’s culinary program, Posada believed there could have been an issue and escorted her students out of the classroom. While waiting outside for the all-clear, she first heard the words “code red.”
“My first thought was, if they were going to do a code red drill, why would they set the fire drill off? It never entered my mind that it was real,” Posada said. “It really wasn’t until we got into the classroom and my students started getting texts from their siblings.”
Once back in the classroom with an official code red lockdown, Posada’s training kicked into action. She locked her classroom door. She and her students crammed themselves into the far corner of the room, out of sight from the door’s window. They waited there, communicating only through frantic text messages, for 90 minutes.
“I kept telling them, ‘We’re safe. We’re safe in here. We’re going to be OK,’” Posada recalled. She thought of how many of her students didn’t have their phones and sent text messages to their parents for them, letting them know the school was on lockdown and their son or daughter was OK.
Across campus, in the building the shooter was attacking, freshman Garrett Schreiber huddled with other students and contacted his sister Morgan, a freshman studying education at Indiana University.
“I got this text from him that said, ‘There’s a shooter in the school. If you don’t hear from me I love you,’” said Morgan Schreiber, taking the microphone alongside Posada at IU. “And that was like one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard.”
Garrett survived the incident unharmed, along with Posada and her English students. However the moment Posada’s class were given the all-clear was one of the scariest for her. She remembers hearing shouting in the hallway and someone trying several keys in her classroom door.
“They finally got the door open, and the first thing that we saw was the barrel of a rifle pointed at us,” she said. “They’re shouting, they’re saying, ‘Hands up get in the middle of the room.’ If I had had a gun at that moment, they would have shot me.”
Posada says she does not think arming teachers will prevent more school shootings.
“I don’t think there’s an easy solution to the problem, or we would have done it already, but I don’t think that is the solution,” she said.
Posada said her husband, aunt and cousin all teach at Stoneman Douglas and were all able to return home safely. She remembers the 17 lives lost, including her fellow educators who died protecting students.
“I think that we all want to say, ‘If I were I this situation I would do this,’” she said. “And these three teachers, coaches, administrators, they did it. They put their own lives in danger for their students.”
Posada’s message to future teachers studying at IU was one of encouragement and hope.
“Please don’t let this type of event discourage you or make you be afraid to become a teacher because in this world it is more important now than it ever has been,” she said.
Posada believes the world needs more empathetic, compassionate teachers who can help students open up and share their feelings before they reach a violent breaking point.
The message was powerfully received by some of the youngest in the audience.
“I don’t doubt my career choice,” said Grace McDougall, a freshman at IU majoring in education. “Empowering students is the way to make things better.”
“I think I’m more excited because I think teachers are having more importance now than ever before,” said Ella Vails, also a freshman. “In a world where teaching is getting more dangerous and students are adapting, teachers need to adapt. We need stronger teachers.”
Posada also said she’s very proud of her students, who have appeared on national news outlets challenging lawmakers and politicians. She says most of them are in the anger phase of the grieving process but says she hopes change and improvement is how people will remember Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
As for her plans when students return, she said when the fire alarm went off, her class was in the middle of reading Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. She said when school goes back in session, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 28, students will not return to the books right away but will all have an opportunity to talk and share their emotions and stories.
Administrators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School plan to welcome students and parents back this Sunday to walk the halls of the school, according to Posada. Students will attend class for half-days next Wednesday through Friday.