Schools across the state of Texas wore maroon Sept. 6 in support of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s return to school. The school district delayed the return of students to give the district additional time to enact new safety protocols and improve campus security, after the shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24 which killed two teachers and 19 students.
Mansfield ISD, along with other districts across Texas, encouraged students and staff to wear maroon and white to “show support for the students, staff and families and the entire Uvalde community,” a Mansfield ISD Facebook post said. Ms. Danielle Panzarella, history teacher, hopes the Uvalde community feels the love and support that school districts across the state showed this week.
“Even though wearing a certain color may seem like a small gesture, I think it is important that we don’t forget and move on from what happened in Uvalde. It’s easy to think that something like this could never happen in our schools, but our recent history in the district has shown that these kinds of situations can and do happen here,” Ms. Panzarella said. “I am not just a teacher in this district, but also the mother of an MISD student. I cannot imagine the pain felt by that community as they start a new school year without the lives that were lost.”
Senior Della Duke incorporated maroon into her outfit to raise awareness against school shootings and show her support of Uvalde CISD.
“It’s tragic what happened at an elementary school, let alone any school,” Duke said. “Those students, or any students, should not be scared for their life when they walk through the school’s doors.”
Ms. Panzarella wants to come together as a district, community, state, and nation to find solutions that will ensure that students are protected in school.
“We can’t change what happened in the past,” Ms. Panzarella said. “But hopefully this shows that we will continue working together to create a future where all of the students in our state can feel safer at school.”
