Public officials and residents of Uvalde, Texas, will have to grapple with a difficult question as the community continues recovering from last week’s shooting at Robb Elementary School: What should be done with the building where 19 children and two teachers were massacred?
Officials from the local to the federal level have expressed a desire to see Robb Elementary School razed and rebuilt, and federal money could help pay for a new school.
“I don’t think anybody’s plans are but to tear that building down,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said, according to KXAS-TV. “I would never ask, expect, a child to ever have to walk in those doors ever, ever again. That building needs to be gone.”
In the United States, there is precedent for making decisions about the future of school buildings where students were killed en masse, whether demolishing and rebuilding the entire school, quickly allowing classes to resume on school grounds, or making major renovations.
After the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 first-graders and six adults, residents of Newtown, Connecticut, attended a series of meetings to decide the future of the site. Ultimately, they decided to raze the entire building and construct a new, $50 million campus on the same site. The state of Connecticut paid for the new school, and Sandy Hook students attended classes at a nearby school until the new campus was opened in 2016.
Business Insider reported that, along with enhanced safety measures including locks on every door and window and key-card access points, the new Sandy Hook Elementary also features “naturalistic” designs intended to calm fears and anxieties from teachers and students there.
Students at Santa Fe High School near Houston returned to school 11 days after a gunman killed 10 people in 2018. Santa Fe ISD opted to keep much of the campus, but approved more than $1 million for security enhancements and to renovate the area of the school where the shooting took place, according to The Houston Chronicle.
After a shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 students and teachers in 2018, school officials were not immediately able to tear down the building where the shooting took place. The gunman lived, which is not common in school shootings, and the building had to be preserved as a crime scene.
But the state of Florida gave the school district $18 million for a new building, which opened in fall 2019, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
In schools where other shootings have taken place, including the 1999 slayings at Columbine High School, officials decided to keep the campuses largely intact, with memorials dedicated to the students and teachers who were killed.
Elected officials who represent Uvalde said they prefer to bulldozer option.
Both State Sen. Roland Gutierrez and Rep. Joaquin Castro agreed. “No child should have to return to the scene of this tragedy,” Castro said in a tweet. Along w/state, local & federal leaders, I’ll work to get Uvalde any money it needs to build a new school.”
Gutierrez said he’s spoken with President Joe Biden about demolishing the school. The Department of Education allows schools to apply for grant funding through a program called Project SERV, which awards funds to school that have experienced mass shootings, suicide clusters, natural disasters and hate crimes.
It’s unclear whether the Uvalde school district has applied for Project SERV funding, but Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said shortly after the shooting that his department would be standing by to help.
“My team at the Department of Education is offering every available federal resource—including through our Project SERV program and on-the-ground support—to help the families, educators, staff, and greater Robb Elementary School community recover from this trauma and loss,” Cardona said.
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