As students arrived at Apalachee High School on Tuesday morning, the scene looked like a typical school day. Cars and buses circled through the car pool drop-off. Students carrying backpacks made their way from the parking lot to class.
There were some differences though.
Students stopped to hug each other before going inside. A sign with big blue letters that read ‘Love will prevail” was perched near the school entrance. U.S. and Georgia flags were at half-mast. The flagpole was surrounded by flowers, balloons and wreaths left in memory of the four people shot and killed here less than three weeks ago.
It was also hard to miss the flashing blue lights of the Georgia State Patrol cars stationed in front of the school.
Tuesday was the first day of classes at the Barrow County school since the shooting. Administrators held an open house Monday at the school to prepare students for the return.
The Sept. 4 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder was the deadliest school shooting in the state’s history. It was also the deadliest K-12 school shooting in the United States since the March 27, 2023 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, where six people died.
Credit: John Spink
Credit: John Spink
There have been calls for increased security since police say a 14-year-old student opened fire in the hallway.
“Understand that there are safety measures in place and just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there, contrary to what you hear and see on the social media world,” Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said at a press briefing Monday.
In addition to more officers on campus, the school district has said it will have more counselors and therapy dogs available for Apalachee High students. Classes will only last half the day for the next few weeks.
The hall where the shooting took place will be closed for the remainder of the school year, so social studies classes will be held in another building a few miles away, the school district website says. Some in the Apalachee community have raised concerns that moving social studies classes separates students from their classmates.
Layla Renee Contreras is an Apalachee alumna and started the organization “Change for Chee,” which has garnered about 1,200 signatures as of 11 a.m. Tuesday on an online petition urging the district to go further — by requiring more safety measures like clear backpacks.
“We know they’re working hard,” Contreras said in response to Smith’s comments. “We know that they care. We’re not saying that they don’t. We’re saying that we just want to have that communication and have that public input.”
Contreras’ sister, Sasha, is a junior at Apalachee and her mom is a substitute teacher at the school. Layla Renee Contreras participated in a walkout in 2018 to protest gun violence in schools after 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Now, a memorial for the four killed at Apalachee fills the space where those protesters stood.
“It’s sad because you would never think it happened in your own community, in your home, until it does, " she said.
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