Chapter 1

Back to the Beginning

When the Sandy Hook shooting took place, I had a child in the same grade as the classroom that had most of it’s children murdered. I also had a younger child and an older child, all three in public school. Like many others, I felt sick to my stomach as I looked at my phone for updates on what had happened in Connecticut that December day. With each new media update came more devastating news, a new name and more heartbreak.

As time would have it, the following week, I was scheduled to be a parent volunteer in my son’s classroom. It was getting close to Christmas and the kids were making gingerbread houses out of milk cartons. As I entered the classroom, I began to cry. I thought of the children who had been doing the exact same thing the week before when they were murdered. I saw my own son and saw how small he was, how he could never defend himself in such a scenario. I never viewed schools the same way again. Sandy Hook changed me.

Despite those feelings, for the most part, life went on with no real changes. Thoughts of tragedy entered my mind often, but beyond longer hugs before the kids boarded the bus, I never acted on anything. That all changed after the Parkland school shooting. Another tragedy but this time, in a high school. X, or Twitter as it was called back then, had videos from inside the school, taken by students who witnessed the events that day. By the time of this shooting, I had a child who was once again the same age as the students who had been killed. The videos showed me classrooms that looked just like ours, girls crying who looked just like my daughter. Like Sandy Hook, the murders changed me but this time, I took action.

I took to Facebook to start the conversation about safer schools and there were other parents feeling the same way. Online, we spoke to each other and virtually gathered, sharing ideas and questions. There was a school committee meeting coming up the next week and one parent suggested we attend and speak to the elected officials. That night, two dozen parents filled the community room to express our concerns about locked doors, emergency plans and school resource officers. For only the second time ever, I stood up and addressed an elected body, sharing my concerns about the lack of preparedness for school shootings. They listened and seemed receptive to everyone.

The work continued after the meeting. Parents gathered more information about how to make schools safe. One parent pointed to local school district that boasted on it’s Facebook page of having a police officer at every one of their schools. Someone suggested we call the police department there to ask how it came to be, how it was funded and some basic questions about the program. I volunteered.

I spoke with their police chief who was kind and very informative. He shared with me plenty of information to take back to the parents and even offered to call our chief and give him details about their program. It was a great call and I shared the information with the other parents.

A day or two later, a small, local radio station took notice of our mediocre activism and reached out to see if any parents wanted to join an afternoon show to talk about our new activism. I joined another mother and agreed to go on the air.

I was driving out to the radio station a half hour away when my phone rang. To my surprise, it was our then chief of police, George McNeil. I was taken aback by the call as I had never spoken to him before. Foolishly, I thought he was calling to wish me luck on the radio.

McNeil was gruff on the line. He said he knew I was heading to the radio station to talk about school safety. Eagerly, I said yes and that I was excited. McNeil sharply stated “your child has a greater chance of being hit by lightening than by being shot at school.” I instantly realized this wasn’t a friendly call. I stumbled through some words, trying to down play my radio visit but he cut me off. “I take offense to you calling another chief to ask about this.” My brain didn’t compute why a police officer was seemingly angry about a parent talking about more police in schools. I tried to explain but he cut me off again: “I’ll be listening.” He hung up.

I drove the rest of the way to the station wondering what had happened and honestly, scared. My interview was weak and I backed off on much of what I had intended on saying, unable to shake McNeil’s angry call. On the way home, my mind was still reeling over his words. I thought maybe he had some wrong information. Surely there was some mix up.

Soon after, things in my town began to change. There seemed to be resistance to our quest for safer schools. In an attempt to share more about our goals as parents, I attended my first board of selectmen meeting. I spoke about the need for more police officers and better locks on doors. I was nervous, but proud as I made my way back to my seat.

Before I sat down, a member of the board addressed me publicly. Selectman Holly McNamara seemed, like McNeil, to be offended at my advocacy. “Just because your neighbors house catches on fire doesn’t mean everyone goes and buys their own firetruck.” My face was hot. I was embarrassed. For a second time, leaders in my community were pushing back on my wanting to make schools safer. It wouldn’t be the last.

I thought about just stepping aside, unsure what I was doing wrong but not wanting to find out. But the thought of my children being in buildings with no protection, at what seemed to be the height of school shootings, was just too much for me to ignore. With a group of other parents beside me, we pushed on.

Over the next few months, I attended every single school committee meeting and spoke about funding new safety measures. Unexpectedly, I received countless messages from teachers, sharing inside information about how truly unsafe they felt inside our schools. Armed with that knowledge, I continued to speak at meetings, no longer shy, demanding change.

The pressure was too much and the committee had no choice but to make swift changes. They voted to allocate funding for building upgrades like bullet-proof vestibules, ID scanners to use on visitors, updated doors and locks and the addition of a second, full-time school resource officer. I was elated.

One night, the matter of school safety was being discussed in the popular “Our Town: Somerset” Facebook group. Like many communities, ours had an unofficial group page where everyone would post and comment on things from taxes to trash day. I was often in the group drumming up support for the school safety initiatives. On this particular post, I wrote about why we needed more police in our schools and McNeil responded. In so many words, he told me to worry about parenting and leave the policing to him. Right after, I was banned from the group and so was my husband.

While annoyed, I didn’t care too much about the ban. But in the years to come, the group would be an important tool for damaging my reputation in my community, where anyone could say disparaging things about me and no one, including myself, was allowed to correct the narrative. Over time, the Facebook group would become a powerful weapon used by McNeil and elected officials to influence community members who dared to speak up and try to make change.

Unwilling to be silenced, especially on matters relating to my children, I doubled down on my activism.

I decided to run for school committee.

I had never run for office before but my experience with the town elected officials and leaders made me question who was running the show. Common sense did not seem to be the default emotion and politics commandeered the meetings. I told my family I wanted to get things done and didn’t have the time to fight for it, so I wanted to be one of the people who made the decisions. I had their support so I pulled my papers.

I had experience working for local political campaigns in the past and had some basic knowledge of how things were done so I hit the ground running and started with some printed yard signs. I knew, however, that signs don’t vote and I needed to get my platform out there. I continued to attend and speak at meetings, post on social media and inform parents in my own Facebook group about progress on ideas and initiatives. But over on “Our Town: Somerset”, the fix was in. None of my posts were allowed in the group, negative comments littered every post about me and I wasn’t allowed in to defend myself. My first showing on the ballot earned me third place out of three candidates, with the top two earning seats. Overall, it was a polite campaign with no other issues. The men I lost to were kind and even took some of my suggestions to the committee. It was a loss, but it didn’t sting.

Over the next year, I continued to be a local activist in my town for all things school related. Once we got some school safety things out of the way, I started to speak up on budget line items and spending, policy and school lunches. I realized how little effort was really being put in by parents to impact our schools and I felt empowered to give my two cents on any and all matters I found interesting.

This new found freedom of speaking, however, came with a price. Often, I placed blame on the elected officials and school administrators who I felt were making bad decisions. At this point, I didn’t know anyone in an elected role that liked me but I didn’t care. I was citizen mama bear, reminding those people who they worked for: us.

With three children still enrolled in the school district and passionate that there was still work to be done, in January of 2020, I knew I would be running for school committee once again.

This time, however, things went very differently.

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