Nicole Hockley stood at the podium in front of a rapt audience, recounting in a matter-of-fact tone how she lost her six-year-old son in the Sandy Hook School shooting.

“My son Jake was in the 3rd-grade classroom in the back of the school. My son Dylan was in the 1st-grade classroom when he was shot and died in the arms of Anne Marie Murphy, his special education teacher.”

Hockley made her remarks to roughly 50 attendees who came to The Morgan School auditorium on March 20 for a free event from the Clinton PTA and Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) aimed at helping community members identify and get help for people who may be at risk of harming themselves or others.

The event also served as a chance for town and school officials to inform the public on steps that they have taken to protect the community.

The presentation was the result of nearly two years of effort by the PTA to bring SHP programs to Clinton. The PTA ramped up its interest in hosting the program in response to increased concerns nationwide about school safety and mental health issues after the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. The event was initially set to be held in November 2018, but was postponed until March following the tragic deaths of two recent Morgan School graduates. Sadly, the March presentation was held in the shadow of yet another mass shooting, this time at a mosque in New Zealand less than a week earlier.

Hockley told the audience that after she lost Dylan, she became motivated to prevent similar tragedies from occurring and cofounded SHP, for which she serves as the managing director. Hockley made it clear that the group does not speak for all 26 families that lost someone that day or the town of Newtown.

Hockley said she had learned several alarming statistics related to school violence since starting SHP, such as that four out of five people who commit an act of violence had told someone or gave signals that they were planning on doing so. To Hockley, that meant there was opportunity to stop these kinds of acts before they took place.

Another thing Hockley came to realize is that there is no national program aimed at educating people on the warning signs, and that even within smaller regions, what’s being taught can be inconsistent, with students at one school taught to react one way and kids at another taught a different way.

To address these issues, SHP has developed several programs that teach people, particularly kids, what to do should they notice anything.

“You can’t just talk to adults, you need to talk to the kids, because they’re going to make the change,” said Hockley.

Thus far, Hockley said SHP programs have been presented in 14,000 schools to more than six million people in all 50 states. In November 2018, the SHP program Say Something was presented in assemblies held at The Morgan School and Jared Eliot School to teach kids how to recognize signs of a threat and to know whom to report the threat.

“We are making a difference, but we need your help,” Hockley said.

As evidence of that difference, SHP school outreach coordinator Marykay Wishneski pointed to a recent instance in Seymour, where SHP had recently presented its Say Something program. On March 19, police charged a middle school student with first-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace after allegedly making a threat.

A school official called Wishneski to thank SHP for encouraging students to recognize a report anything suspicious, because several students reported seeing concerning behavior online, which prompted an investigation.

Safety in Clinton

Following their presentation, Hockley and Wishneski joined Superintendent of Schools Maryann O’Donnell, Police Chief Vincent DeMaio, Human Services Director David Melillo, Morgan School Principal Keri Hagness, and Jared Eliot Middle School Principal Linda Tucker in a roundtable discussion that addressed the steps Clinton specifically is taking to ensure school safety.

O’Donnell and DeMaio discussed the recently formed School Crisis Advisory Board and some of the steps taken to address potential dangers to the school. DeMaio listed physical upgrades to school security as well as steps like having a school resource officer in the school to connect with the students and make them comfortable talking to police officers with any concerns.

“The safety of these campuses is paramount to every man and women in the department and certainly the school administration,” DeMaio said.

DeMaio said that some aspects of the advisory board’s protocols were best kept secret to protect their effectiveness.

O’Donnell said that the school system has been exploring the idea of bringing an app that would allow students to anonymously report anything they see that’s worrisome. O’Donnell said she has been talking with the Guilford school system to gauge its experience with a similar feature they launched in January.

“I definitely think it’s something that’s important to get in play,” said O’Donnell, adding that all it takes is one student saying something to make a difference.

The discussion also touched on other opportunities the town and schools have taken. Clinton Youth & Family Services initiated a club called Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) at The Morgan School. The club draws its members from Peer Advocates, REACT, Kindness Club, GSA, Husky Leaders, Student Council, and sports team captains. A week-long student led event called “Start with Hello” was held last fall to reduce social isolation within the school.

Melillo said the town had received a grant to work to address suicide prevention, and has said in the past an intention for the department to seek ways to address the issues that affect recent graduates who face a lack of community once they leave the school system.

The PTA announced at the close of the presentation that a FAQ would be compiled and made available for those who did not make it to the presentation, More information on the PTA can be found at www.clintonpta.org and more formation on SHP can be found at www.sandyhookpromise.org.