ST. LOUIS — Central Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) High School students and teachers returned to the classroom virtually Monday for the first time since the tragic shooting that killed a teacher and a student.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten visited St. Louis on Central VPA’s first day back to the books.
“There is a lot of trauma still and there are not a lot of good answers yet,” Weingarten said.
Weingarten said she spent the day listening to the teachers, families, and elected officials of CVPA and Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience who were close to the tragic school shooting to come up with short-term and long-term solutions.
“Long term -- there need to be changes in the law -- red flag laws really work, and they would have worked here," Weingarten said. "Common sense gun laws really work, having community schools and wraparound services really work.”
5 On Your Side’s Laura Barczewski asked Weingarten: “What are some steps that the union can take, that you can do now?”
She responded: Well, one of the things we can do is get more guidance counselors into both of these schools immediately and have that commitment through the end of the year. A second thing we can do is make sure that the safety changes that need to happen, including having security to the doors and the windows.
Both Central VPA and Collegiate are learning virtually.
Central teacher Ashley Merideth said it was good to be with students again, even just online.
“It was really encouraging to see my students today. I mean, most of them didn't put their cameras on, but in every single class that I had, today, we had so much participation,” Merideth said.
Merideth said as a performance-based school, virtual instruction isn't going to work for very long, but staff and students have mixed feelings.
“I think that we need to be together. I think that we need a space where we can have students performing. There needs to be something that they can work towards, something that they can showcase. They need to be able to process in the way that they process,” Merideth said.
She said the whole school community really misses teacher Jean Kuczka and student Alexzandria Bell.
“I think that we do them justice by continuing on and I trust that we will heal as we do and that we are going to get better and eventually, things are going to be okay again,” Merideth said.
She said it would be the best Christmas gift if they could return to in person learning before the holiday break.
School officials said they are working on an alternative location to hold classes while the building is still being repaired.
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