After fatal shooting, parents caught off guard by school closures and what to tell kids

Moira Smith heard the gunshots early Wednesday morning about a block away from her home in the South Addition neighborhood near downtown Anchorage.

At 7:15 a.m., she got a text message: One of her children's schools was closed because a man had been killed that morning at the intersection of 15th Avenue and E Street.

The extraordinary decision to close Chugach Optional Elementary School and Central Middle School of Science, at the north and south ends of a long block on E Street, came as district officials were confronted with a crime scene near the entrance of the middle school. A body was in the street. The spokesperson for Anchorage School District, Heidi Embley, said officials had no sense of how long police would be in the area.

[Suspect arrested in fatal Anchorage shooting]

"At that point, for logistics as well as for students and staff safety, we made the decision to close," Embley said.

The shooting happened about 6:15 a.m., according to Anchorage police. About 6:40 a.m., Embley said, Lt. Duane Fujimoto, who oversees the resource officer program that puts cops in schools, called the district's chief operating officer to say police had set up a crisis center next to the school.

About 10 to 15 minutes later, school officials, including Superintendent Deena Paramo, convened to discuss the situation. By 7:15 a.m., the first text messages and robotic phone calls had gone out.

The principal at Central Middle, Joel Roylance, went to the school once he'd learned what had happened.

Two students were already there. One later got picked up. Roylance drove the other home, because her mother didn't have a way to pick her up.

Meanwhile, other gears were in motion. Some students take a bus to Central Middle School.

The school ran normal bus routes and picked up kids who might not have received the word and were out waiting for their bus, Embley said.

After checking in at Central Middle, Roylance went to West High and found about a dozen of his students in the auditorium.

"We were making phone calls and parents were picking up kids," Roylance said.

Meanwhile Claire Fulp, the principal at Chugach Optional, rushed to school once she'd heard what had happened. Before she got there, the school district had decided to close the school.

A few parents came to the school with their children. Fulp redirected them.

"It's a sad thing for our city," Fulp said.

Fulp said the school's psychologist and resource officer would be on campus Wednesday to talk to students and parents; she would also make herself available.

The school's business partner, Kaladi Coffee, announced on Facebook it plans to park a mobile food truck on the campus and give out free coffee to parents, school staff and neighbors.

Downtown Assembly member Patrick Flynn's son, a sixth-grader at Denali Montessori, takes first-period algebra at Central Middle School, which starts at 8:15 a.m. That class was canceled Tuesday morning.

Flynn said he got the messages before they left for school. He said he was surprised school was canceled for the entire day but it made logistics easier for parents.

Other nearby schools, both public and private, felt the ripple effects of what had happened.

Puffin Heights, a private Montessori child-care center on West 20th Avenue, closed until about 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

William Canady, the owner of Puffin Heights, said he closely monitors lockdown proceedings for Anchorage School District. He put messages and calls out to Puffin Heights parents once he heard the morning's news.

He said he decided to reopen the school after the suspect had been arrested. Parents asked the school be opened, he said.

In a message posted on Steller Secondary School's website, Principal Reed Whitmore talked about putting the school's volunteer program on hold and closing the campus.

During a staff meeting at Steller, officials learned the suspected shooter had been taken into custody, Whitmore wrote. He said the school then resumed normal routines.

Amber Brophy has 5-year-old twins in kindergarten at Chugach Optional. The family got up early because Brophy was planning to volunteer at the school. Her kids were excited, she said.

Brophy said she had her hand on the door handle at home when she looked at her phone, which had been on silent. She had about 20 text messages from friends and family telling her to stay away from Chugach Optional.

Brophy told her kids there was a "bad guy" by the school. Her kids started crying. "Is our school going to be OK?" they asked.

"The next two weeks, all they're going to talk about when we're driving to school is, 'Is the bad guy going to be there?' " Brophy said.

As it turned out, the suspected shooter was apprehended near to where Brophy lives, in Spenard.

Brophy said the killing only added to mounting frustrations about crime in Anchorage.

"You already can't go on a bike trail or be in a park right now," Brophy said. "Now they're taking away my kids' school."

Smith, the Chugach Optional parent who lives near where the shooting happened, said she thought closing the school for the day was "absolutely" the right decision. But it was still disruptive, she said.

When Smith told her 8-year-old daughter, Maggie, that school was canceled, Maggie wanted to know why. Smith told her there had been a shooting and someone had been hurt.

Since then, Smith said, she's been going over in her head what to say. She put a message on Facebook asking other parents for their thoughts.

Her daughter has been very lucky, Smith said. She hasn't had to confront violence until now. She said she now wants to be thoughtful about how she discusses the situation with her. There's also the added layer of the shooting so close by, Smith said.

"I'm happy she didn't wake up when the gunshots happened," Smith said. "But it still happened."