Dear Colleagues,
Another day of horror and grief. Another school turned from a center of safety and learning to a place of violence. Another community forced to accept the loss of their children, siblings, and friends.
This week’s tragic shooting in Texas has us all in shock and dismay. Just two weeks after the horrific, racially-motivated attack in Buffalo, processing this event and supporting our members and their students is one more challenge we must face together.
We have been working non-stop over the last several days to provide support and resources for our members, collaborate and plan with our partners, and build a menu of advocacy options for driving real change to address the violence that took so many young lives this week.
Below are several resources we have developed for you and your members.
To support our members and their students – we have developed a number of resources related to care, support and mental health including:
- The NEA School Crisis Guide – Link
- NEA Grief Resources - Link
- NEA Mental Health Web Page – Link
- NEA Today Article on “How to talk to Students about Violence”
We will launch a new web page today that curates all these resources into one place at www.nea.org/gunviolence
NEA’s Initial Response to the Media included a joint statement from TSTA and NEA- National Education Association and Texas State Teachers Association issue joint statement in response to Uvalde, Texas school shooting
We have followed up with a new statement to push back on calls to arm educators in schools - Link
We also have these talking points on school safety - Link
Some lawmakers are rushing to distract the public from their failures to protect us from another mass shooting by floating proposals to arm teachers and fortify public schools.
This national 2018 NEA survey shows that NEA members overwhelmingly reject such proposals. Link to story and survey here.
NEA also sent a letter to the full congress with a succinct and pointed message “What will you do?” We shared the letter on social media:
- FB: https://www.facebook.com/181857644075934/posts/335075425420821
- NEAT: https://twitter.com/NEAToday/status/1529461036763467776
- IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd-8Afesf4n/
We are building on that message to Congress with an action alert - Here – asking activist to call on their representative to answer that question.