Families Impacted By Parkland School Shooting Remain Focused On School Safety, Changing Laws
PARKLAND (CBSMiami) -- Sunday, Feb. 14 marks three years since that horrifying Valentine's Day in 2018, when 17 people were killed and another 17 injured in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
"For me, every day is like the day that this happened," said Max Schachter whose son Alex was murdered that day in his English class.
"I would give anything to go back and rewind time just to have a couple minutes to give him a hug, kiss him and tell him I love him," he said.
Since that dark day, Max has taken that grief and focused it on efforts to promote school safety. He was part of the MSD commission that investigated the shooting and got laws changed in Florida — laws, he believes, that make Florida schools safer.
"I think that the state of school safety in Florida is 180 degrees different from where it was prior to the shooting," he said.
Max created the "Safe Schools for Alex" campaign. Now he's launching "The School Incident Report."
"The dashboard gives you the ability the search your specific school," Max said.
The report is actually a dashboard that takes more than 1.6 million pieces of data reported to the state and puts it an easy to read format. You can look up any public school in the state.
"You can look at exactly what types of incidents are happening," Schachter said.
For example, when you pull up Marjory Stoneman Douglas, this is what shows up.
"They reported 6 violent incidents, they reported 1 property incident, vandalism and they reported 35 drug and public order incidents," Max read from the report.
He hopes parents, teachers, school board members and legislators use the tool to begin conversations to make schools safer.
"I just want to make sure that Alex' death was not in vain," he said.
Patricia and Manuel Oliver's son Joaquin, known as "Guac," was one of the 17 people who lost their lives that day.
"These three years we've been learning a lot," Joaquin's mom Patricia said. "How to deal with the pain, how to deal with the action, how to deal with criticism, how to deal with lawmakers who don't get it!"
The Oliver's use bold art to spread their message of gun reform.
Their latest campaign is "Shame Cards." Shame Cards are postcards that will be sent to lawmakers highlighting mass shootings around the nation, pushing for updated gun laws.
The one from Parkland reads: Southern Florida is known for sand, surf and the deadliest school shooting in United States History.
"I don't understand why there's no ban of assault weapons," said Joaquin's dad Manuel. "How can a regular civilian with no experience have access to an assault weapon, I don't get it," he said.
The Oliver's vow to never stop fighting, calling themselves the rebels in the fight against gun violence.
"We don't stop. We are parents. We refuse to stop being parents. We will protect Joaquin no matter what, until the day we cannot show our faces because we are not here," Manuel said.
To learn more about "Safe Schools for Alex," "Shame Cards," and more efforts from the families impacted by the tragedy, click the links below.
- Stand With Parkland
- Safe Schools For Alex
- Safe Schools For Alex/School Incident Report
- Change The Ref
- Shame Cards
- Orange Ribbons for Jaime
- Make Our Schools Safe
- Swim For Nick
- Carmen Schentrup Memorial Fund
- Gina Rose Montalto Memorial Foundation
- Chris Hixon Athletic Scholarship
- Meadow Pollack: Americans for Children's Lives and School Safety
- Ryan Petty: Walkup For School Safety
