Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Lori, thank you so much for joining today. I appreciate you.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Thank you for having me here today.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Laurie, I want to start with a difficult question, and I appreciate you being vulnerable and willing to share your personal story with us. Would you be so kind to do that?
[00:00:16] Speaker B: So it was Valentine's day in year 2018, and it was supposed to be a day full of chocolate and love. And my daughter Alyssa wasn't really looking forward to this day.
And I ended up getting her a gift. Gold bag with chocolate bar and gold earrings. And I gave Alyssa that bag that morning when I took Alyssa to school, and she was really excited. I put the earrings in her ears, and she threw the chocolate bar into her backpack. And then I dropped Alyssa off at school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And that would be the last time that I would see Alyssa alive. Later that day, I got a text message saying, shots fired at Stoneman Douglas High School. Kids running and jumping the fence. And I immediately had this sense of loss that came over my body. I knew something was drastically wrong. I got in my car and I drove as fast as I could to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And the street was blocked off. Law enforcement was everywhere. People were everywhere.
We really didn't know what was going on. And Alyssa's best friend, Abby came up. And I looked at Abby and I said, where is Alyssa? And she just didn't know. And a little bit later, Abby got a text message saying that Alyssa was shot.
And I fell to the ground. I just lost all the blood from my body. And I got up, I started running towards the school. And a police officer pushed me back and said that you can't go any farther and that you can go with this police officer to the hospital. You know, I thought, being that Alyssa was shot, that she was on her way to the hospital.
And I went with a police officer to the hospital, but Alyssa wasn't there. And then he took me back to the Reunification Center. And at this time, there was hundreds of people just running around. And people that couldn't find their loved one were just placed in a space. And then eventually, at 2:30 in the morning, I was to find out from the FBI that Alyssa was shot and killed.
And that just destroyed my family.
Now we're almost seven years since the tragedy, and every day is a struggle, difficult. And, you know, especially during holidays, Thanksgiving coming up. And we just are in so much pain with losing our daughter in such a tragic way.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Gloria, I wish we were in person so I could give you a hug. This is unimaginable pain. You started an organization after this happened. Tell us a little bit about what led up to this and what the organization does.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: So very quickly after February 14th, my husband and I, we decided to turn our pain and grief into action, starting the nonprofit organization make our school safe. And we're focused on three main things. One is passing Alyssa's law, which is panic buttons in schools. So if there's a life threatening emergency situation, the teacher can press their panic button and they can go directly to law enforcement so they can get on the scene as quickly as possible. The second thing is our mosque clubs where students in high schools help to create a culture of safety within their school. You see something, say something, and we can prevent violence from happening before it happens. And then thirdly, we've raised over $400,000 given back to schools for different school safety projects, specifically at their school. And then also after the tragedy, I ran for the Broward county school board. And I've been on the school board for the last six years, almost seven years.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: These are each, I think, incredibly interesting and important activities. Tell us a little bit about the button. How is the button different from a 911 call? Why does it provide value?
[00:04:26] Speaker B: So the panic button can be rolled out different ways. One, it could be an app on their phone or it could be a wearable panic button the teacher wears around their neck. So if they're going to use the wearable panic button, they can press it three times for a medical emergency or eight times or more for an active shooter situation. And in a life threatening emergency, body goes into fight or flight. So we want something that's going to be super easy, super fast, directly goes to law enforcement so they can pull up the cameras within the school, get eyes on the scene, better direct their SROs, where to go, EMS to come in to triage any of the victims. And then with an app based panic button, they can take video. There could be two way communication and it just helps to get help there faster because it's geofence. The area, they know exactly where the threat is and exactly where they go. And we say that time equals life and the faster we can get help on the scene, we know that we can save lives and the faster that law enforcement can go to take down the shooter to prevent further loss of life.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Every second truly does matter in this case.
What about the clubs? I mean, I was just reading through the club manuals. So many beautiful things in the way that this has been structured. Tell us about it.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Thank you. I really Appreciate that when the shooting happened in 2018, if you remember, the students were very vocal of talking about gun control. But I want to specifically have the students work on school safety. And we know that the students know what's going on with their Snapchat and texting and where the threats are coming from. So if the students can take control of the safety at their school, be a part of the conversation, feel comfortable with talking with their principal or teachers about a potential threat, we know that we could prevent violence from happening before it happens. But also our students are part of this lockdown generation, always having these different trainings and codes that they have to go through. And I want students to have a way to be a part of the safety conversation, specifically at the school. You know, maybe student sees that a door is unlocked and they can talk to their principal about locking the doors, that that's going to make them safer. So nobody could just walk into their school.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: That's such an important point, right? The difference between talk to act and actually being part of the conversation and maybe even driving the conversation that the clubs are really advocating for. But the clubs are not just about shooting. Right. There's other elements to this, mental health, et cetera. Tell us about that.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: We want students to have build up their resiliency skills. Whether it is knowing that they're going through something and knowing where they could get help for their mental health. It's so important. You know, we want kids to know that it's okay to not be okay and it's okay to ask for help and talk through their problems in a healthy way. And if we can help build up those resiliency skills through the moss through conversations that these kids have and know that they're not alone. You know, a lot of kids are doing a lot of self harming and since COVID they were socially isolated and now we're back, but they don't know how to be back, how to interact with their peers in a healthy way. So we want to build up their students resiliency skills to be able to communicate, have healthy conversations, how to deal with their stress and for them not to vape or go to drugs or try to harm themselves.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: What do you see and hear coming from these students? How's this? The participation in the club affected them.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: So it's amazing. I was just at a club meeting the other day, There was like 45 kids there and it was awesome to see. There was actually a former MSD student who was affected by the tragedy and she had a therapy dog with her and so she was telling her story, but also explaining how actually it was a service dog, helped to help her heal and help to deal with her PTSD and how the dog helps her in her everyday life.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: That's amazing.
Beyond the clubs and the schools, there's also a need that you've been working on from a legislative perspective. Tell me about that.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: So we are trying to pass Alyssa's Law nationwide as a standard level school safety protection in every school across the country. Make our school safe believes that every school needs to have their panic button to have mass notification in a life threatening emergency situation. We've passed Alyssa's Law now in seven states. New Jersey, New York, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Utah and Florida. And we do have a federal bill to pass Alyssa's Law nationwide. And so you can help us by going to our website, makeourschoolsafe.org we have a clickable map. So if Alyssa's law hasn't already been passed in your state, you can click on the map. It helps. It auto populates a form where you can put in your information and your zip code and you can send a message very quickly to your legislator or you could create a video to explain to them why it's so important that Alyssa's Law gets passed in your state to help to make your schools as safe as possible. Because unfortunately school shootings are not stopping and we need to make sure that we're prepared in these life threatening emergency situations. But not even that predominantly this panic bind is going to be used for a medical emergency, which we have these medical emergencies every single day in our schools.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: So I mean, this seems like a such a no brainer, nonpartisan issue. What has been the challenges with accepting this in the states at the federal level?
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Well, at the federal level it's just been very challenging to pass anything. It doesn't matter if it's nonpartisan or it's just to be able to get any type of legislation through. But hopefully that changes and you know, we could move forward. And so that's why meanwhile we're going state by state so that we could still accomplish things little by little. And the more I think that this picks up in every state across the country, then federally we can help to try to pass Alyssa's law. And of course it comes down to a lot of times to one, I think just being aware of this technology, but two, also the funding aspect to be able to fund this technology in every school across the country, considering that.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: You know, process to change the law is ongoing and everybody can go to the website and do their part. What are the things that we as parents can do when we talk to our children?
[00:12:12] Speaker B: So I think it's a difficult conversation, but so we just. I just created a make our school safe coloring book. And so I recommend parents to get their coloring book off our website, makeourschoolsafe.org where it can then be a more comfortable, like, kind of environment for them to talk about school safety, specifically at their school. And depending on the age of the child, obviously. But you need to just make sure that they're safe or there's something that makes them unsafe that they feel like. And I think that coloring book just, you know, with coloring with your child just helps to create an environment where the child feels open to talking more about the safety at their school.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: And what are the topics that you recommend to through the coloring book and others for parents to really address with their children? What are the key messages?
[00:13:10] Speaker B: I would just talk specifically, like, if they had a fire drill that day, talk about what they did. And I think it's important to understand what they're doing in their fire drill so parents can maybe go back to the teacher to have a conversation or to the principal at the school. You know, one of the things that what's happening a lot of times with fire drills, they're lining up and quickly getting outside. Well, we know that kids are very safe. Even if there was a fire in the building, the fire truck gets there within five minutes or less. The building is safe to be against the fire. There's fire splinter systems. But if they go quickly outside, they're an open area to potentially be another threat that could be out there.
I would also just talk to your child about listening to directions, making sure that they're aware of what is going on, what their teacher is telling them and what to do in that emergency situation, and just to be aware of their surroundings. You know, it is very difficult. You know, I always think back, like, should have I had that conversation with Alyssa what to do if an active shooter came into her school. And it's very painful, very difficult. But I think the kind of doing scenarios and how your child would react in those emergencies can help.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: I appreciate that. Laurie, thank you so much for coming on today and talking about a very important and yet difficult topic. I appreciate you.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
