ST. LOUIS — There will be no classes Tuesday at Central VPA High School or Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, the superintendent announced Monday night.
Students and teachers were evacuated from the schools after a school shooting Monday morning.
The shooting happened at Central VPA High School, which shares a campus with CSMB. A student, a teacher and were killed and the suspected shooter died after exchanging gunfire with police, Interim Police Chief Michael Sack said in a press conference Monday morning.
In the announcement, the district said it is working on a process to return students' possessions that were left behind in the school.
"Please know we are making plans to allow you to retrieve your property as soon as the authorities allow us to do so," the announcement said.
All other schools will SLPS schools will be open Tuesday.
The full message is as follows:
While all other St. Louis Public Schools will remain open (Tuesday), there will be no school Tuesday, October 25 for the staff and students at Central Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) or Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience (CSMB) high schools.
The two schools are part of an ongoing investigation involving Monday morning’s active shooting incident that left the shooter, a teacher and a student dead, and six others injured. We are all devastated by the loss, and we remain laser focused on students, staff and families impacted by this terrible tragedy.
Counseling is underway and will continue as we avail ourselves of additional resources so generously offered by our medical, mental health and school district communities.
We are still taking the lead from our district safety officers and security team, who are working closely with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose agents were also on site today.
We thank Schnuck Markets Inc. and the Arsenal store team, the Red Cross and the Urban League for assistance in sheltering our students, and Missouri Central for helping to evacuate students. We also appreciate the calls, emails and generous offers of support. Please know that we will be making use of all avenues of support available to us in the coming weeks.
Once we have been cleared to do so, we will be able to offer more information on the conditions of our CVPA students who remain in the hospital and speak about the two individuals we lost today. In the meantime, our hearts are with these families. We will continue to meet with them and help them as best we can.
In the meantime, we realize that some students and staff left behind important personal items in the buildings when they were evacuated. Please know we are making plans to allow you to retrieve your property as soon as the authorities allow us to do so.
Parents, please make sure that you are on our robo call list and that your contact information is up to date for all messaging. Our trauma services and staff are here for you as well, please just reach out to your school directly or online. Our Student Support Services team has updated the website with a number of resources to help us all hold these difficult conversations with our students in school and at home.
Finally, please know that I, and the entire staff at St. Louis Public Schools, share in your sorrow over today’s tragic losses and the trauma such an incident leaves behind. I assure you that our staff is committed to doing everything in our power to keep our schools safe. I am proud of their actions today and I am convinced that some of their actions saved lives. And, for this, I am grateful.
Kelvin R. Adams, PhD.
Superintendent of School
