Educators entering the classroom for the first time this fall are looking forward to helping students succeed but have strong safety concerns amid recent mass shootings.
First-year music teacher Ileana Garcia said she is excited to share her passion for music with her students at San Antonio Independent School District.
“If I can get even one kid to just be super excited about music, then I know I’ve done my job,” Garcia said.
Garcia has concerns about the upcoming school year after learning about the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde that left 19 students and two teachers dead on May 24.
“I know everybody says, ‘Oh, no, it will happen here, won’t happen there.’ But it happened somewhere so close to us,” Garcia said.
Destiny Carroll said she applied to be a substitute teacher at a Southwest ISD job fair to be closer to her daughter in light of what happened in Uvalde.
“The Uvalde situation really hit home. It made me feel like I needed to be where I can help. So that’s something that really affected me, and hopefully, I can be of help to others,” Carroll said.
Garcia said she remains optimistic about school security plans and officers responding to a school shooting. She said she wants to stay informed by administrators from “plan A to plan C.”
“I do trust that my schools are going to keep us safe and that we will make sure that every kid is out safely in the event (of an emergency). I trust our law enforcement that they’re trained properly to get us in the event something like that happens and make sure that no teacher, no student has to lay their lives in front of an active shooter like that,” Garcia said.
ALSO ON KSAT.COM
Read or watch KSAT’s latest Uvalde coverage here
Increased liability, scrutiny over police officers’ actions has some second-guessing their decisions