Some parents of Roosevelt High School students first heard about Tuesday morning’s shooting incident from their children or co-workers by way of cellphone texts and calls.
Esther Santos drove to the Punchbowl-area campus to pick up her daughter after her adult son told her that he had received a text about the incident, in which a 17-year-old boy in a Roosevelt counselor’s office was shot by a police officer after the teen allegedly attacked three officers with a kitchen knife as they were attempting to take him into custody as a runaway.
Before classes were called off for the day at 10 a.m., Santos stood next to a chain-link fence, peering through to look for her daughter. "You always hear this happening at a mainland school. For it to actually hit home, it’s very nerve-wracking," she said.
Shortly after 9 a.m., Roosevelt notified parents about the lockdown at the school with voice-recorded and email message alerts.
Superintendent of Hawaii’s Department of Education Kathryn Matayoshi said, "We have an automated telephone system so the school is able to get a message out to all parents immediately to let the parents know that the situation is under control, their children are safe."
Updated messages followed the initial alert to notify parents that school was let out early and classes were expected to resume today. The updates were also posted on DOE’s Facebook page and Twitter account.
Matayoshi said she spoke with Roosevelt Principal Jeanette Uyeda and Complex Area Superintendent Ruth Silberstein, who "assured us that things are under control, procedures have been followed." She added the school was prepared for the incident thanks to annual lockdown drills with the Honolulu Police Department.
"We always look at the situation and see if there are things that can be improved, but again the schools are prepared, we did go through practice for these kind of incidents and the automatic telephone system did work in this situation," Matayoshi said.
DOE spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said the department’s automated mass messaging system, Synrevoice, quickly sends voice and email alerts in response to any incident that disrupts a normal school day. The alerts go to phone numbers listed on emergency cards filed for every student.
Santos said she could not fathom a shooting would occur at a school in Hawaii.
"I never thought it could happen here. But when it actually did, my gosh," she said.
Maka Sula first heard about the shooting when he received a call from his daughter who attends Stevenson Middle School. Sula immediately called his older daughter, a sophomore at Roosevelt.
"You get anxiety. You want to make sure the kids are OK," he said. "With all the crazy shootings going on the mainland, we don’t need that down here."
Another concerned parent said she first heard of the shooting through a co-worker and online posts from local media. She received recorded messages from Roosevelt on her answering machine at home while at work. The parent said she is now looking into having the school send recorded messages to her cellphone.
———
Star-Advertiser reporter Nanea Kalani contributed to this report.
