North Jersey schools ready to reassure students after Connecticut killings
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2012 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY DECEMBER 17, 2012, 12:05 AM
BY LESLIE BRODY
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
In Bergenfield, crisis counselors and administrators planned to meet at 7 a.m. Monday to discuss how to help children feel safe as they come back to class after Friday’s horrific carnage in a Connecticut elementary school.
In Paterson, a principal plans to hold several assemblies for different grade levels, so she can reassure students in language fitting their ages.
And in a Jewish day school in New Milford, students in Grades 5 through 8 will wear green and white, the colors of Sandy Hook Elementary School, where police say 20 children and six adults were shot dead Friday by a disturbed loner who then committed suicide.
Wearing green and white to honor the victims has become a Facebook campaign, and a sixth-grader at Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County emailed the leader of her school to say her friends wanted to do something to show they cared.
“It was coming from the children thinking of other children just like themselves,” said Ruth Gafni, the head of Solomon Schechter. “They felt compelled to take some action to take control of the uncontrollable.”
New Jersey educators said they spent much of the weekend thinking about how to welcome children back after the second deadliest school shooting in U. S. history. Some held ad hoc meetings about it. Many districts sent out email blasts or phone alerts to assure parents they followed all required safety protocols and give tips on how to talk with children anxious about the tragedy.