OXFORD, Mich. — Reina St. Juliana looks at the photograph of her younger sister, Hana, and sees her beautiful face smiling back and her hands holding a bundle of lavender, one of the 14-year-old's favorite flowers.
Reina, 17, does not see how this photograph — part of a planned temporary memorial inside Oxford High School for Hana and three other victims of the Nov. 30 school massacre — could trigger trauma or why it should be placed in a school theater where most students won't see it.
For months, Reina and dozens of other students at Oxford High have battled with district and school board officials over what the temporary memorial for Hana; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Justin Shilling, 17; and Tate Myre, 16 — who were all killed in the attack — should contain and where it should be located.
"They keep saying a photo of them is triggering, that Hana's, Justin's, Madisyn's and Tate's faces are triggering," said Reina, a junior. "That is not the reason why kids can't walk in that building. It's not their smiles. The kids don’t want to walk those hallways because their school was shot up and they experienced something someone never should have."
Heated and emotional exchanges between students and school officials — including a school board member characterizing outspoken students as "disrespectful" and students accusing school officials of hiding the tragedy — culminated last month in the board's decision to put a temporary wall memorial inside the high school where a teen gunman carried out Michigan's deadliest school shooting.
As result, Oxford may be the first school district in the nation to hang a memorial inside a school where a mass shooting took place. The Michigan district consulted with other U.S. schools where mass shootings occurred, where memorials were located out in the community or outside the school away from the main entrance.
Superintendent Ken Weaver said the district consulted with officials from school shootings at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, Santa Fe High School in Texas, Columbine High School in Colorado and Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut as it tried to make a decision for the school community.
"The advice we've gotten was 'do no harm.' It (a memorial) needs to be optional for students and staff. To put a memorial in a hallway is not the best approach to mental health. It can be retraumatizing," Weaver said. "Some kids will find it helpful in their recovery, yet I question that — to go visit something every day. We don't do that. We don’t visit memorials every day."
A permanent memorial is also being planned, but it will not be located inside the school building, Weaver said.
School officials had proposed a banner in the gym with no photos. Students and others pushed back, repeatedly making demands at board meetings during public comment for photos. School board President Tom Donnelly said at the May 17 board meeting he heard them and the community.
"We heard you. We talked to more of you. ... In times of challenge, it is important we listen to our community. ... We believe this temporary memorial is needed," Donnelly said.
"Some of your comments this last week fed into these decisions. We appreciate you. ... We heard you wanted to see the faces."
A 6-by-3-foot acrylic sign memorializing the four victims will be hung this summer inside the high school's performing arts center. It will contain photographs, names and a short remembrance from each of the families. Raised mounted letters will read "Always in our Hearts."
Weaver, who has become visibly emotional during school board meetings after students and parents have criticized the district's responses, said decisions over the memorial have been hard and emotional. The memorial banner was donated by Jostens, said school officials. The courtyard sign and transitional memorial for the wall in the Performing Arts Center lobby are a gift from the district to the high school.
"We are trying to manage recovery for over 1,800 people — students, staff and parents and doing what is best for everyone and their path for recovery," Weaver told The News. "It will not be coming before the end of school. We will put it up over the summer and make sure kids have access."
What mental health experts say
Mental health experts said memorials to honor victims and survivors of mass violence incidents are extremely important to remember and pay tribute to the devastating impact on and losses endured by victims, survivors, first responders and communities.
Not agreeing about a memorial after a school shooting or violent incident is common, says Cathy Kennedy-Paine, who chairs the crisis-response team for the National Association of School Psychologists and works with schools to help them recover after shootings.
Kennedy-Paine was part of the mental health team at Thurston that made recommendations on memorializing victims of the May 21, 1998, school shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon. A student gunman killed two students and injured 25 others.
"We have to ask: Why would students want a memorial?" Kennedy-Paine said. "We have learned over the years from school shootings and grief: It has several purposes. It allows people to express their grief and come together and share that common emotion. It allows students to take an active role in the grieving process. Maybe they have a sense of hope and it’s part of the recovery process."
The challenge, experts said, is designing a memorial that meets the needs of every group affected by the shooting: students, school staff, parents, families of the deceased and the community.
Students have a strong sense of remembrance and want to create a legacy for their classmates, said Terri Tchorzynski, a Michigan school counselor at the Calhoun Area Career Center in Battle Creek.
"They are thinking about it from an individual, emotional place and not a logical brain of how it may affect others," Tchorzynski said. "They want that memory."
While erecting a memorial is intended to be positive, she said it could be a detriment to others.
"The concern is that it could do more harm than good to others who don’t feel that way or weren’t involved," Tchorzynski said. "Five years from now, a student who sees a memorial of them could trigger feelings around another event."
The Battle Creek school counselor said she has not seen examples of longstanding memorials inside a school setting because the research does not support it. Students should consider whether a memorial outside the school in the community and in other spaces could accomplish the same desires and goals as the memorial they want inside the school, she said.
"I don’t think school is the appropriate place for these memorials. I understand the kids are hurt; they want memories of their classmates. They have to think about all other students and what it may induce in them. You sound insensitive when you go back to the research, but there is potential damage to other students," Tchorzynski said.
How other memorials are done
In Michigan, a historical marker memorializes victims of the 1927 bombing that rocked the Bath Consolidated School and killed 39 children and teachers. Dozens more were injured in the city northeast of Lansing. Located in a park on the city's Main Street, the marker was erected in 1992 by the Michigan Department of State's bureau of history.
A memorial to victims of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre is in a park adjacent to the school. Work on the project started in 2006, more than seven years after the shooting, and was completed in 2007. It cost $2.2 million with many companies donating their work.
The design was developed with input from a memorial committee with Columbine graduates who were students in 1999, past and present faculty, Columbine parents, community and business leaders, and first responders. A foundation raised money for the annual park maintenance.
The Florida Legislature provided $1 million for the design and construction of a permanent memorial honoring those who lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. It has yet to be built.
In 2021, a permanent memorial to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School was approved in a vote of the Connecticut town. It took nearly a decade to plan and will be a short distance from the new Sandy Hook Elementary School. Construction began in 2021.
How district made its decision
In a May 6 email to Oxford families, Weaver said the district consulted with other schools that have faced a similar tragedy and mental health experts who specialize in trauma recovery.
Oxford school officials were told a memorial that contains images of the victims "tends to invoke a stronger emotional response from the viewer. Memorials that focus on abstract representations of the victim’s lives — hearts, names, initials, etc. — bring about a response without the strong emotions an image may cause," he said in an email.
The district was advised it was best to locate the memorial outside of the school to allow access at all times, Weaver said.
"None of the schools we have contacted have memorials inside of the school due to concerns about safety and the well-being of all students. Some memorials have not been located on school property at all, while some memorials have been located outside on school property," according to his email.
Discussions about a permanent memorial will also get underway this summer by a soon-to-be-planned committee that will consist of students, parents, families, school staff and community members, Weaver said. But the permanent memorial will not be located inside the building and the temporary memorial will come down at some point, he said.
"It will be outside of school ground or located out in the community — not in the building," Weaver said of a permanent memorial.
A banner in the gym with the names and hearts for the victims with no photos is also expected to go up this summer, Weaver said. A proposal for a school courtyard with remembrances and gardens is still being developed with student input, he wrote said.
"We love the four children and families greatly. We will never know their pain and we are doing our best," Weaver said.
Initial controversy
A little more than a month after the shooting, Oxford students and families of the victims became upset in January when the impromptu outdoor memorial on school grounds was dismantled with less than a week's notice.
Many students remain dissatisfied with a few days left in the school year — the last day of school is Friday — and there is no memorial to the victims inside their school.
Jace McCarthy, who graduated from Oxford High last month, has spoken to the board about what he considers the need for the memorial to be inside the school with input from students and families of the dead.
"The performing arts center, it's hidden off. What I don’t like about it is all the stuff that kids didn’t pick up (after the shooting) is in bags there. It's a forgotten area," McCarthy said.
McCarthy is among a group of Oxford students and graduates who are now putting their time and energy into advocating for a memorial for the student victims in the nearby village of Oxford, about two miles from the high school.
"The village council is having a meeting about the memorial. I am tired of fighting with the school board of education. A lot of students are," McCarthy said.
Jack Curtis and Sylvia Lester are freshmen at Oxford High School, were friends with Hana and were in school on the day of the shooting.
Curtis sent emails to the school administration urging the placement of a memorial in the school with input from families of the victims, while Lester spoke at school board meetings asking for photos of the victims to be a part of the memorial.
Both said more than six months have passed and still no photographs of their victims of the shooting are hung inside their school. Curtis said he wants the school administration and school board to listen to students, talk to them and include them in decisions for all of the memorials.
"We experienced first-hand. They didn’t. They should listen to the kids who were there, especially the families," Curtis said.
A one-size-fits-all tribute?
Kennedy-Paine says it's a challenge to design a memorial that meets the needs of every group affected by the shooting: students, school staff, parents, families of the deceased and the community.
It's important to students to have a voice in what it looks like and where it is located, she said. In Oregon, it took five years for the community to approve a permanent memorial for the students, Kennedy-Paine said.
A memorial park at Thurston High School is located outside on school grounds, away from the main front entrance. It includes a memorial wall, garden, benches and an inscription plaque with the date of the shooting.
It does not contain photographs but identifies the two victims by name and says 25 were injured.
"It's a nice acknowledgment of the support the community provides and the students whose lives were lost. It is maintained by the district and the school board approved it," Kennedy-Paine said. "It took five years. It’s a very, very emotional process to develop a permanent memorial."
Temporary memorials can serve as a bridge until permanent ones are created, she said.
"The important thing in making those decisions is the memorial is serving a purpose for the staff, students, the community to help them grieve and help with recovery," Kennedy-Paine said.
"Kids need a visual memory. It makes sense if we go back to our tradition of how we bury people in cemeteries. We create monuments. We have places where we honor and recognize our loved ones who pass on. It’s a very natural thing."
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