MARYSVILLE — The tragedy might have occurred hundreds of miles away, but it felt close to home.
The Marysville School District on Thursday quickly posted a simple message on the district Facebook page. It read: “Our hearts and thoughts go out to Umpqua Community College and the Roseburg, Oregon community.”
Nearly a year ago, Marysville Pilchuck High School endured the loss of five young lives when a freshmen shot his closest friends before killing himself in a school cafeteria.
On Thursday, a 26-year-old man gunned down people at the Oregon college.
“What Marysville Pilchuck is doing right now, as well as every other school that has been through something like this, they are dealing with some of the fallout,” said Mary Schoenfeldt, a trauma expert who worked on recovery efforts with the Marysville School District for several months after the shootings here. “It (takes) people back to their own experience. They will feel compassion for the victims and witnesses and it will be a reminder of what their experience was.”
Schoenfeldt said adults — parents, counselors and other staff — should remind students and themselves that they have come a long way since the Oct. 24, 2014, shootings.
“Just listen to them and be gentle with them,” she said.
Writing a note can be as helpful for the senders channeling their thoughts as it is to the receivers coping with the shock and sadness, she said.
For now, the Marysville School District and volunteers are planning a “Walk of Strength” event on Oct. 24 to mark a year since the MPHS shootings. It will include students, staff, police, firefighters and people from the Marysville and Tulalip communities.
The event begins at 9 a.m. that Saturday at the high school stadium. It will include time to gather and reflect as a community, walk around the high school and plant thousands of red and white tulip bulbs.
The Roseburg shootings occurred the same day fourth- and fifth-grade students from Lowell Elementary School in Everett practiced a disaster reunification drill. The morning event occurred at Everett Memorial Stadium.
The gist of the drill was to make sure students were connected to families or authorized adults after being taken from their school to another location. That’s what happened in Marysville a year ago after the shootings.
The Everett district had reunification plans on paper but had never practiced it with students and parents, school officials said.
“Our goal was to make sure we had tested a plan and we had thought through ways we would do this if there is an earthquake, a gas leak, a boiler blows up, whatever it might be,” said Mary Waggoner, a school district spokeswoman.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.
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