A Teacher From Parkland H.S. Reflects on the Uvalde & Buffalo Mass Shootings

Sarah Lerner

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Marianne O’Hare : Welcome to Conversations on Health Care. This week we welcome a
teacher who survived the Parkland Florida School shooting in 2018.
Sarah Lerner who published the book, Parkland Speaks, share stories
from students and teachers who s urvived that trauma .

Sarah Lerner: As a survivor, you know what those families , what they're all feeling
and going through and it's just awful.

Marianne O’Hare : Lori Robertson joins us from F act C heck.org , and we end with a bright
idea , improving health and wellbeing in everyday lives . Now , here are
your host s Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter .

Mark Masselli: Our nation is once again facing a reckoning over mass shootings and
gun violence. The latest tragedy at a Texas Elementary School has left
19 children and two teachers dead. This follows the racist motivated
killing of 13 people at a Buffalo grocery store. Our guest has an
important and personal perspective.

Margaret Flinter: Sarah Lerner is a teacher at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
School in Parkl and, Florida, where 17 students were shot and killed
just over four years ago. She's also a founder of Tea chers Unify to End
Gun Violence.

Mark Masselli: Sarah , thank you for joining us at this very tragic moment , and
o bviously, all Americans ’ hearts are b reaking , and we simply can't
make sense out of this situation. Y ou wrote an essay late last year in
the New York Times that asked the question, will my students ever
know a world without school shootings? H ere we are just a few
months after you wrote that piece , and unfortunately we know the
hor rific answer, I’m wondering i f you could share your thoughts?

Sarah Lerner: Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be a part of this
conversation. I don't even know where to begin about what happened
yesterday . I t is almost two weeks since the shooting in Buffalo. It is a
little over four years a fter the shooting at my school, a nd here we are
again. Except this time, it's an elementary school a nd they were just
babies. I t just breaks your heart every time you he ar about something
like this, regardless of the setting and the circumstances. It's just
terrible. As a survivor, you know what those families and what that
community, like what they're all feeling and going through, and it's
just, it's just awful.

Margare t Flinter: Well, Sarah we're speaking to you from Connecticut, relatively close
to Sandy Hook Elementary School and our Community Health Center
was involved a fter that mass shooting and providing grief counseling,
and support. You've shared that you sought therapy , later were
diagnosed with Post - Traumatic Stress Disorder. Can we take a
moment to ask how you are doing and what's your advice right now

Sarah Lerner

for your teaching colleagues at Rob b Elementary?

Sarah Lerner: I am okay. It was a very long, difficult night last night. Thankfully, I
have a therapy appointment scheduled for tomorrow s o this is not
good timing, but also good timing. I guess the advice I would have for
those at Rob b Elementary is to take care of themselves. It's very hard
in the immediate to re cognize your trauma. Like you're in shock for
days, and then you move through the stages of grief regardless of
how intimately connected you were to the instance itself. But it's okay
to not be okay. It's okay to seek help. It's not okay to just sit in it and
allow yourself to kind of go down that rabbit hole. T hat's my advice
for everyone who goes through something like this, seek help.

Mark Masselli: Well thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that
Sarah , and I think unfortunately too many people have had to go
through this situation . A fter the Parkland shooting, you were the
editor of and a contributing writer for Parkland Speaks and it was a
book featuring a rt and Writing f rom the Parkland students. How did
that book help students deal wi th the grief that they were facing , a nd
is it a vehicle for others to use as well?

Sarah Lerner: Yeah, I believe that it is a vehicle for others to use. I have friends who
teach in different parts of the country a nd I know that they have use d
the book in t heir classes as part of their curriculum around the
anniversary and also at different times throughout the year. A s far as
the book coming together, it -- I was approached by a senior editor at
Random House in March of 2018. She'd asked if I'd be intereste d in
working on an anthology of student work, artwork, photography,
poetry and prose a nd of course, I said yes . I spent the remainder of
the school year collecting all of that from the students.

I edited the book throughout the summer . I contributed t w o pi eces
myself , a nd then there were two other teachers who each
contributed a piece. W hat it ended up being is just this phenomenal
piece of history , i t is an incredibly heavy book . T he students were so
happy to participate and get their voices and their stor ies out there
b ecause there hasn't been something like Parkland Speaks before. I t
tells the story of these kids who survived something like this and lost
friends and lost their innocence that day a nd it's -- it was a lot to do,
but it was important. I'm gl ad that people have responded well to it,
and are able to read it and use it and take away from it.

Margaret Flinter: S arah, I wonder if you could share with us, how was the organization
Teachers Unify Against Gun Violence created, and maybe share with
us a little bit about its schools and its agenda, how that came to be
and what its worth is today?

Sarah Lerner: Yeah, absolutely. I mmediately after the shooting at Oxford High
School, at the end of November, Abb e y Clements who was the

Sarah Lerner

teacher at Sandy Hook a nd is still a teacher in Connecticut, and Sari
Beth Rosenberg, who's a teacher in New York City. The three of us are
in a group chat together. Abb e y sent out a text , I want to say it was on
a Saturday, she's like so enough is enough , I think we need to sta rt an
organization to support teachers to work to end gun violence.
W ithout skipping a beat Sar i Beth and I were like, y ep, we're in
whatever you need. Let's do this. I t just started that easily.

W e have worked over these months to form this organization. We
have a board. We have our tax exempt status. We have done panels
that included Randi Weingarten, the president of AFT . Fred
Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jamie at the shooting at my school,
Jamie was one of my students. We had on Dr. Joseph Sakran , who is a
trauma surgeon and a gun violence survivor himself, as well as others
on that panel. W e are working to make communities and schools
safer, because we know it's not just school shootings or gun violence
at school. It's gun violence in communities o f color. It's suicide by gun
violence . I t's domestic violence. I t all finds its way into school,
because it's the baggage and the trauma that these kids carry with
them, or that you as the educator carry with you. I n order to fix gun
violence, which is als o a public health crisis, we want to give a voice to
the teachers -- I’m sorry the bell is ringing school just ended for the
day.

Mark Masselli: Sure. You know that simple proposition enough is enough should
resonate with more people than it has , but we're glad you acted on
this. W e agree that gun violence is a public health issue. But not
everyone sees it that way. In fact, and surprisingly in 1997 Congress
ended funding for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's
gun violence research , hard to bel ieve. It wasn't until 2020, the
federal budget has finally restarted that funding , but I'm wondering
what more we ca n do in the public health arena?

Sarah Lerner: Oh gosh, I don't even know where to start. There's so much we can
do. There needs to be backg round checks, people who are 18 years
old should not be able to access these firearms and weapons of war.
T he Second Amendment is not just carte blanche to tote around your
weapon anywhere and everywhere . W e no longer need a well
regulated militia. I'm not opposed to guns, if you feel that you need to
have one to protect yourself and your family , t hat's fine. But a
handgun is significantly different than an AR - 15, which is the weapon
of choice for all of these shooters.

We need safe storage laws and regulat ions . W e need to not have
ghost guns . L ike there are so many things that can be done a nd it's a
shame that 50 senators are holding this up and preventing all of this
legislation from taking place b ecause children are dying, people of
color are dying , like that should not -- it should not be happening , and

Sarah Lerner

yet it continues to happen.

Margaret Flinter: Sarah , almost everything we can talk about relative to this issue is
hard to talk about. I think that we -- the last group I want to put any
more burden on for anything is teachers and school administrators
whose job is pretty hard to begin with. But I think you've written that,
looking back at the event in Michigan Oxford High School, that maybe
the threat hadn't been -- possible threats hadn't been recognized or
taken seriously enough before that mass shooting . What can teachers
and administrators look for in terms of warning signs for something
that might come from within their community? Have you looked at
that? Have you tr ied to explicate that a bit?

Sarah L erner: I think it's -- I mean, as an English teacher I see like the students ’
writing . We in the English world are privy to journal entries and essays
and things that like a math teacher wouldn't be. It’s we see those
things, and we read those things where other teachers might not. It's
always hard to know, though, what a student is thinking or feeling if
they're not forthcoming and open and honest a nd share those things
with you. Sometimes, there aren't any warning signs, it's the last
person you would exp ect. It’s like the saying “I f you see something,
say something .” I t's true, but sometimes you don't see things and
there's nothing to say , s o I hope that helps.

Mark Masselli: Yeah and Sarah we see you in the classroom, you are obviously, as an
English tea cher listening to words and writings all the time taking the
measurement of where students are, and behavioral health issues
have loomed large, not only relating to tragic incidences like this but
certainly the pandemic itself has created a sense of isolat ion. I'm
wondering what you're seeing in terms of the -- how would you sort
of describe the mental health status of the students that you're
encountering . W hat's the sense and feel on the ground in a
classroom?

Sarah Lerner: T he students who are here on ca mpus weren't students who were
here that day , like all of the students have graduated. I n spite of that,
there's still this understanding of what a school shooting means. W e
practice Cod e Red drills and we do all of those things. I think when
shootings hav e happened in years past when we've had -- when we
had those 214 kids here, we -- it was a much different feel in the
immediate aftermath of those other instances . Now , they get it but
on like a tangential way, because they weren't actually here , b ut
they' ve been practicing these Code Red drills and lockdown drills for
years because of what happened at our school.

The vibe for me today, I've been distracted thankfully by your book
distribution , s o I haven't been like sitting in it. But it's still been, you
know, what happened yesterday is definitely at the forefront of my
mind and my thoughts. I haven't had many conversations with my

Sarah Lerner

students about it today simply because it's also senior exams. I
haven't had many students here , but I know that it's been par t of
their conversations amongst each other. I just haven't had much of an
opportunity today to talk to them about it.

Margaret Flinter: Well, Sarah , thank you for taking the time to join us. Thank you for
sharing your reflections. Most of all, thank you f or being a teacher
every day. Thank you so much.

Sarah Lerner: Oh, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

Mark Masselli: Absolutely take care of now. Thank you.

Sarah Lerner: Thank you.

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Mark Masselli: At Conversations on Health Care we want our audience to be truly in
the know when it comes to the facts about healthcare reform and
policy. Lori Robertson is an award winning journalist and Managing
Editor of FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate
for voters that aim to reduce the level of deception in US p olitics. Lori,
what have you got for us this week?

Lori Robertson: It's likely the 10 year assault weapons ban which expired in 2004 will
get renewed attention after the deadly mass shooting at an
elementary school in Texas. I n f act, President Joe Biden mentioned
the ban in his remarks after the shooting . Biden helped shepherd the
assault weapons ban through the Senate as part of the 1994 crime
bill. We last looked at the impact of the ban in March 2021, after
Biden claimed that i t, “ brought down these mass killings. ” We found
that the raw numbers when adjusted for population and other factors
weren't so clear on that. However, there was growing evidence that
bans on large capacity magazines might reduce the number of those
killed and injured in mass public shootings.

At the time, Biden was speaking after a mass shooting at a grocery
store in Colorado in which 10 people were killed. The assault weapons
ban in the 1994 law prohibited the sale of certain semi automatic
firearms and la rge capacity magazines that could accommodate 10
rounds or more. Existing weapons on the banned list were
grandfathered, meaning people could keep them. A sunset provision
meant that the ban expired in 10 years. A review of gun studies by the
RAND Corporat ion updated in 2020 concluded there is, “ inconclusive
evidence for the effect of assault weapons bans on mass shootings. ” A
RAND senior behavioral scientist who led the project told us he didn't
think there were great studies yet to determine the effective ness of
the ban.

The research RAND was able to review, “ doesn't provide compelling

Sarah Lerner

evidence one way or the other, ” he said, but some emerging research
about post - ban trends may provide useful information. For instance,
research published in 2019 in the jou rnal C riminology and Public
Policy found that after controlling for population growth, the assault
weapons ban did not appear to have much of an effect on the number
of mass public shootings c omparing a pre - ban period with the 10
years the ban was in effec t . B ut the researcher found the severity of
mass public shootings, meaning the number killed and injured had
increased dramatically in the post - ban period after 2004.

Research published in the same journal in January 2020 concluded
that assault weapons ban s didn't appear to be associated with the
frequency of fatal mass shootings. But state laws requiring handgun
purchasers to obtain a license and state bans of large capacity
magazines did show an association with reductions in fatal mass
shootings. Other r esearch published that month focused on the role
of large capacity magazines. The author Christopher S. Koper ,
Principal Fellow of George Mason University's Center for E vidence
B ased C rime P olicy concluded data on mass shootings suggest that
large capacity magazine restrictions could “ potentially reduce mass
shooting deaths by 11% to 15% a nd total victims shot in these
incidents by one quarter likely as upper bounds .” He said the success
of any ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines may
depend on how the law is implemented, especially with regard to
grandfathering existing weapons. T hat's my fact check for this week.
I'm Lori Robertson, Managing Editor of FactCheck.org.

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Margaret Flinter: FactCheck.org is committed to factual accuracy fro m the country's
major political players and is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy
Center at the University of Pennsylvania. If you have a fact that you'd
like checked, e - mail us at www.chcradio.com , we'll have
FactCheck.org's Lori Robertson check it out for you here on Conversations on Health Care.

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Mark Masselli: Each week Conversations highlights a bright idea about how to make wellness a part of our communities and everyday lives.

Fitness trackers hav e become all the rage, especially among upwardly
mobile fitness conscious people seeking to monitor their own health and fitness goals. But another trend has emerged in the age of wearable devices. After a few months, about a third of users simply stop usi ng them, leaving a lot of costly devices sitting on the shelf and
not in use. The reality captured the imagination of Tufts University School of Medicine , P rofessor Dr. Lisa Gualtieri .

Sarah Lerner

Dr. Lisa Gualtieri : I had read about the abandonment rates a nd I though t what if you
could take all of these abandoned trackers and give them to the
people who could benefit most from them?

Mark Masselli: She thought what if we could get disinterested owners to donate their
used fitness trackers and wearable devices to be a r epurposed and
donated to underserved populations .

Dr. Lisa Gualtieri : A lot of the work that we've been doing has been with older adults,
racial and ethnic minorities. For a lot of people they're quite
interested in owning one of these devices to help them increase their
fitness. F or a lot of people the cost is prohibitive , s o I think that that's
a barrier for a lot of people.

Mark Masselli: So in 2015, she launched her nonprofit enterprise RecycleHealth , an
online social media campaign to raise awareness f or her program,
which seeks donated wearable devices no longer in use to provide
these expensive devices for free to those in need. She partnered with
organizations working with low income adults in wellness programs,
and those with mental health issues, s eniors and fall prevention
programs, minorities and veterans as well. Her goal is to start
collecting vital data on the deployment of these devices and the
impact they may be having on behavior change in vulnerable
populations.

Dr. Lisa Gualtieri : What we do is talk to people about how active , how sedentary they
are, and coming up with a reasonable and achievable goal to helping
them to see it as an educational process where they might start off
with 2 000/ 3000 steps as their goal, but they know how to make that
higher when they're ready to.

Mark Masselli: So far, the numbers of donated devices have numbered in the low
1000s. She's hoping to scale that number up significantly in the future
and to expand their data collection on health outcomes for vulnerable
populations who gain access to these wearables . RecycleHealth , a
simple repurposing of personalized wearables providing these tools
for free to vulnerable populations, empowering them to engage in
activities that can improve their own health, provide usefu l data and
using th ese devices to improve population health. Now, that's a bright
idea.

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Mark Masselli: You've been listening to Conversations on Health Care. I'm Mark
Masselli.

Margaret Flinter: And I'm Margaret Flinter.

Mark Masselli: Peace and He alth .

Sarah Lerner

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Marianne O’Hare : Conversations on Health Care is recorded at WESU at Wesleyan
University, streaming live at www.chcradio.com , iTunes, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. If you have comments, please e - mail us at
[email protected] or find us on Facebook or Twitter. We love
hearing from you. This show is brought to you by the Community Health Center .

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