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Columbine 10th Anniversary Gathering Reveals New Untold Stories

School Safety Partners
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image Colorado Rising began with a press conference at the Denver Press Club. Pictured left to right: Kristi Mohrbacher, Jeff Kass, Darrell Scott, Jenna Edwards, Andrew Robinson, and Michael Dorn. (Photo by Dave Petty)

Parents and former Columbine students joined educators and first reponders from across Colorado to share stories of turning recovery into renewal, and renewal into community growth.

Members of the Columbine community, including parents and former students who lived through the deadly 1999 high school shooting, joined educators and first responders from across Colorado on Friday to share their stories of turning recovery into renewal, and renewal into community growth.

The gathering, "Colorado Rising: The Future of School Safety," was organized by School Safety Partners and represented for many a new purpose for Columbine anniversaries. All key participants are making themselves available to the national media in the weeks ahead in spite of general fears of yet another Columbine-related media circus.

Darrell Scott, father of Columbine victim Rachel Joy Scott, recalled values from 100 years ago that made American education the best in the world through teaching the head, the heart, and the hand. His daughter's writings have inspired a nationwide youth movement and a chain reaction of kind acts.

Writer-director Andrew Robinson, a 1999 Columbine graduate, screened "April Showers," an intense feature film based on his experiences during and after the Columbine High School tragedy. The audience was so moved by the film that the discussion that followed ran two hours overtime.

Kristi Mohrbacher, who was in her junior year at Columbine in 1999, showed how her generation is connecting with younger generations, and how students should directly participate in school safety planning. She maintains a blog with other Columbine survivors, and follows how today's students open up after viewing "April Showers."

Ted and Katherine Zocco-Hochhalter, parents of Columbine survivor Anne Marie Hochhalter, teamed up with John-Michael and Ellen Keyes, parents of Platte Canyon High School victim Emily Keyes, to introduce their new program to train parents to be part of school incident management teams. The initiative was hailed as an important new step in community partnering.

Other participants included international school safety expert Michael Dorn; "April Showers" producer Jenna Edwards; authors of two new books about Columbine, Jeff Kass and Dave Cullen; Sarah Strizzi, U.S. Department of Education; Linda Kanan, Colorado School Safety Center; Janelle Krueger, Colorado Department of Education; Sabrina Arrendondo Mattson, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence; Jim Walpole, Superintendent, Platte Canyon School District; Joseph Gargan, Foundation for the Prevention of School Violence; Chuck Burdick, Columbine shooting first responder; Patrick Hobby and Michael Coleman, policy advisors on crisis communications; Kathy Morris, 2008 REMS Grant awardee for Durango Public Schools; and school and public safety decision-makers from more than 20 Colorado counties and school districts.

Requests for interviews prior to April 20 can be directed to John Simmons at 303-548-3816 or JohnSimmons@SchoolSafetyPartners.org.

Download Conference Documents

April Showers

Platte Canyon School District

Pueblo County High School Full-Scale Active Shooter Exercise

Communications Interoperability and Human Interoperability

Safe Havens International

Sharing Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence

Foundation for the Prevention of School Violence

 

 

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