Teachers Conflicted Over Possibility to Return to Building Where Parkland Massacre Happened

It’s been locked up and fenced off for five years, the inside largely left as it was on Feb. 14, 2018.

Now Broward County Public Schools says teachers who taught inside the 1200 building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School may be given an opportunity to access their classrooms if they want to retrieve personal items before it’s demolished.

The three-story classroom facility sits on the campus like an emotional scar on the Parkland landscape, a visceral reminder of the unspeakable tragedy of 17 lives lost in a mass shooting.

“Don’t want to go anywhere near that building,” said Kim Krawczyk, who taught geometry on the third floor.

Her colleague across the hall, Scott Beigel, died trying to shepherd his students to safety. Krawczyk moved to Orlando, where she now teaches with a therapy dog by her side. She was enveloped by horror inside the building. And while she wants her personal items back, can’t bear the thought of going back inside. 

“The pain, I don’t want to say subsides, but it tempers a little bit more with time, but I don’t want to go backwards in that, just revisiting all those memories,” Krawczyk said. “To just see all that, just all that, how real that moment was, how in danger you really were, it’s not for me, it’s definitely not for me, the loss we suffered was too much.”

Ivy Schamis feels the loss every day. She taught in the 1200 building since it opened in 2009. Two of her students, Nick Dworet and Helena Ramsay, died in her classroom.

“I ran out, obviously when the SWAT team came in, in a second’s notice, in a fog, I was in a state of horrible panic, of course as were all my students and everyone in the 1200 building, but I also keep going over and over in my head all these years, all the fabulous things that took place in that classroom, all the learning that went on, all the relationships that were formed in there, all my friends that I met in the 1200 building, I need to go back to have some sort of like a cathartic closure is what I really need,” Schamis said.

I asked her if she could, would she go back to her classroom to retrieve her things personally.

“Yes," she replied. "I’m not saying it would be easy, I’m sure it would be very difficult, very difficult to see."

The school district has sent emails to faculty who used to work in the 1200 building that there will be an opportunity to get their things back, but not necessarily by allowing teachers back into their classrooms. They’re still working out the details.

“So our commitment is to allow teachers and other staff members who have personal effects in that building to have access to those effects,” said John Sullivan, spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools. “We understand that this is very emotional for them to be constantly reminded so we just want to be respectful and ensure there is a process for them to collect their personal belongings.”

The timetable depends on the trial of former school resource officer, Deputy Scot Peterson, which begins next month. The building is needed as evidence in his case and can’t be torn down until it’s over.

But even if they get their things back, even when the building is demolished, it doesn’t erase the trauma.

“The utter loss, the fear, the despondency, all of those things that took place, they don’t come down with the building, they still exist,” Krawczyk said.