UVALDE, Texas – When the shooting broke out at Robb Elementary School in Ovaldi, teacher Elsa Avila said fourth graders followed lockdown protocols.
“I locked my door, turned off the lights, and said to the kids, ‘Let’s move, let’s move.'” Let’s go, let’s go.” “They knew what they were doing,” she told ABC News.
Avila said that as soon as they hid in a corner of the classroom, they heard gunfire in the hallway, and the children started crying.
When Avila stood up to check on her students, she said she felt a gunshot wound through her stomach and she fell to the ground.
“The kids are terrified,” she said. “I was in so much pain. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk.”
Elsa Avila, the Robb Elementary School teacher, who was killed in the May 24, 2022 massacre, spoke to ABC News.
She said the fourth graders reassured her and told her, “Everything will be fine…we love you.”
The gunman did not enter Avila’s class. She spent weeks in the hospital recovering.
As summer draws to a close, Avila, a teacher of more than 30 years, realizes she’s not ready to go back to school.
Timeline: Tracing the changing story of the Ovaldi school shooting
Tuesday marks the first day of classes in the Ovaldi School District, more than three months after the May 24 massacre of 19 students and two teachers. The school year, which usually begins in August, has been postponed to give everyone more time to prepare for the new year.
With Rob’s doors closed, students from that school will be transferred to one of three other elementary schools in the area.
Students who were infected in Robb have left the area and are now attending Sacred Heart Catholic School in Uvald, where classes began in August, according to the diocese. In the aftermath of the massacre, the Sacred Heart Organization said the number of students enrolled in it more than doubled to more than 100.
A picture was taken of Sacred Heart Parish School in Ovaldi, Texas, on August 21, 2022. (Kat Caulderwood / ABC News)
Some Uvalde families, who are critical of the school district’s safety protocols, are not ready to send their children to the classroom and opt for homeschooling or virtual learning. The Uvalde school district said it has created a new virtual education framework so children can learn from home and access counselors and other resources remotely.
Eight-year-old Zion Martinez, who was in the rob on the day of the massacre, is one of those who opted for virtual learning when he started third grade.
His father, Adam Martinez, told ABC News that Zion did not act like him for weeks after the shooting. He said Zion is starting to get back to normal, but he still has nightmares and is very cautious.
Early in the summer, Adam Martinez said he knew his 12-year-old daughter Zayon wouldn’t be ready to go back to their classes.
“We started putting pressure on the school board, the police and the city council,” he said. “We were calling for measures like more safety at school, police shootings, window fencing, and bulletproof windows.”
Watch: Uvalde’s teacher describes the moment he saw the shooter trying to protect the students
He said the area soon “started moving a little faster” with the new protocols, such as fencing and a greater police presence.
But as I told my kids, they didn’t care,” Adam Martinez said. They said, ‘Who cares if there are cops or not? They won’t get in, they won’t protect us.”
A government investigation found that the police response to the school shooting was delayed by 77 minutes and marred by failure. A special committee in the Texas legislature released a report finding that School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo “failed to perform or transfer the role of incident leader to another person.”
Arredondo It was launched on August 24th.
His attorneys said in a statement that day that he could not serve as the incident leader because he was on the front lines and that the officers were unaware of others in the room with the shooter.
The legislature’s report also found Failure to maintain facilities and advance preparation, including inadequate security at entry points and a “culture of non-compliance by school staff who frequently open doors and deliberately circumvent locks”.
more: Months after the Ovaldi, Texas shooting, security improvements appear on ‘Meet the Teacher’ night
District Supervisor Dr. Hal Harrell New security measures announced this summer, including the assignment of 33 state public safety officers to the district; Installing 500 cameras creating one entry point in each school; Hire a “campus superintendent” responsible for walking the ground and checking gates, locks, and doors.
Avila, who will not return to teaching after she recovers, said she is not sure what will make students and parents comfortable returning to classes, because she sees a lot of loopholes in the area’s protocols.
Avila said Ovaldi’s schools need better training, noting that teachers have been trained to “close,” but not to active shooting.
“I know if the shooter is in the building we should try to get out. But we haven’t trained at all, how are you going to get out if someone is in the building?” She said, noting that the classroom windows did not open.
She said some protocols – closing doors and turning off lights – were an impediment to police who had no idea they were in the classroom.
The district said it will conduct “extensive professional development and training in campus security and campus and district protocols.”
See also: The last survivor of the Ovaldi school shooting has been released from hospital after two months
Avila is also concerned about employee communications. She said she texted her manager saying she was shot, but said that was not shared with the police.
The district promised to “evaluate and review connections and WiFi” on its campus.
While the district now provides mental health resources, Avila said she is concerned about students whose parents They are not comfortable letting their children meet with counselors.
And although Yuvaldi offers virtual learning, Avila said she has not found an online school particularly effective during the pandemic.
“A lot of them didn’t have adult supervision during that time…so it’s up to the child to be disciplined and followed up. We just didn’t notice,” she said.
Adam Martinez said his wife will be at home to monitor the virtual learning of their 8- and 12-year-olds. The family plans to reassess online education at the end of the semester.
Venessa Rendon sends her three children to personal school, including her son who is enrolled in Robb.
“In my house, default is not an option,” she said. “I feel that their interaction with their peers, and then being in the classroom environment, is more beneficial to them.”
Junior Andrea Pérez said her mother wanted her to try virtual learning, but she felt it would be very difficult for her to learn that way. She added that her cousin who attended Rob would not be returning to in-person learning yet.
Jasmine Cazares, whose 9-year-old sister, Jackie, died in Rob, also returns to the classroom.
“I’m preparing myself,” she said. “I’m ready to go back, to try and find a little bit of normalcy in my life, but it’s really hard.”
Cazares found it difficult to stay focused during COVID-19 virtual learning, so she personally chose to get more interaction with her teachers.
“Everyone is a little divided,” she said after going back to school. The teen said she thought the area “hasn’t done much” to raise security.
The teen said, “If you don’t feel safe at school, and if your parents don’t feel safe at school, don’t go. There are plenty of other options.”
Veronica Mata, whose 10-year-old daughter Tess Mata was murdered in Robb, returns to her job as a kindergarten teacher at another elementary school in Ovaldi.
Jerry and Veronica Matta appear during an interview with ABC News. They are the parents of Tess Matta, 10, who was killed in the Ovaldi shooting.
“Teaching has always been something I’ve wanted to do. I know Tess wanted me back,” she told ABC News. “I think if I had stayed home, it wouldn’t have been so good for me.”
“She always loved teaching,” her husband, Jerry Mata, added.
Veronica Matta said she feels safe back in class.
She added, “We want accountability. But we can’t let this anger control our lives. Tess was not an angry person and I guess I can’t live angry all the time.”
A mural of Tess Mata is displayed in downtown Ovaldi, Texas, on August 21, 2022. (Kat Caulderwood/ABC News)
ABC News’s Josh Margolin, Olivia Austin, Jim Schultz, Lucien Brugman, Joe Diaz, Chiara Alfonseca, Kat Colderwood, Brian Misersky, Miria Villareal and Patrick Linehan contributed to this report.
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