A former San Carlos mom who lives 20 minutes outside the site of today’s , said her children came home from school today with no information about the tragedy.
Although a bit shaken by the police presence on all of the schools throughout Fairfield County, the mom, who wished not to be named, said the children did not utter a word about the day’s events.
The Fairfield School District did alert parents of the shooting by the same alert system used for snow days and the like, she said. She said the district was encouraging parents to stick to their regular routines with their children.
“The natural urge for all of us when we hear something like this is to go and get them but since the kids didn’t know of anything, there was really no point in picking them up,” she said.
According to Fairfield police, calls began flooding phone lines at 9:30 a.m. with reports of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The death toll stands at 20 children, six adults, including the shooter and one adult victim at a “secondary scene” in Connecticut, according to Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance.
All schools in Newtown were shut down early, according to the former San Carlan, who lived in San Carlos for nearly six years before a job transfer brought the family of four to Fairfield Proper.
She likened the Newtown to Woodside, large lots in a rural setting filled with middle class suburbanites.
The mom said she felt the need to explain the events to her kids but was happy to see a school district e-mail blasted to all parents to guide them through the days of tough questions that lie ahead.
“Your first impulse is to educate but the kids need to be coddled and shielded from this type of incident,” she said. The mom’s children attend kindergarten and second grade at a school in the district about 20 minutes from the scene of the shooting.
The district e-mail titled, ‘Helping Children in the Wake of Violence’ read,
“The National Association of School Psychologists provide a great deal of quality information for parents and teachers to help children and young adults cope in the aftermath of violence like the violence that occurred today in Newton.
Please follow this link www.nasponline.org to get assistance. The support services teams in our schools (School Psychologists, Social Workers, and School Counselors) are also available to support you and your children should the need arise.”
The mom described the neighboring town as “very quiet.” She said while shopping in Bed, Bath and Beyond earlier today, everybody was extremely quiet and very friendly. She added that this is a community all too familiar with tragedy, with its proximity to Ground Zero and the fresh memories many have of the recent Hurricane Sandy storm.
The communities are very close, she said she is certain she will know of people who were directly impacted by this senseless school shooting.
The mom, who lived in San Carlos from 2003-2009 said she has received dozens of calls from concerned friends. She said she is safe but shaken.
