CHARDON, Ohio — Students recently commemorated the Chardon High shootings by dancing.
With the fifth anniversary of the tragic day drawing near, high schoolers threw an annual Valentine’s luncheon and dance for local senior citizens at the nearby Park Elementary School. Young and old snaked together in a conga line between tables decorated with red, pink and white balloons. They polka-ed to Cleveland’s own “Just Because.” They waggled their arms toward the ceiling and kicked their heels to “Stayin’ Alive.”
Leadership teacher Rob Mizer told the crowd, “I hope you’re having a good time at our fourth annual Valentine’s Day Dance … We believe in paying things forward because the community has treated us exceptionally well over the past five years.”
Except perhaps in some classrooms, Mizer’s welcome is about as close as the Chardon schools are coming this month to explicitly commemorating three fatal shootings on Feb. 27, 2012 – or 2/27, as locals call their small, up-close counterpart to 9/11.
Chardon copes with high school shootings’ anniversary by dancing
Based in the hilltop seat of Geauga County, the Chardon school district includes its namesake city, Aquilla, Chardon Township, Hambden Township, Munson Township and part of Claridon Township. The district has responded to 2/27 in several ways.
With help from a state grant, the schools have taken on a resource police officer, three social workers and a mental health counselor. Students also spend much more time than before helping each other and their community, especially this time of year.
Mizer’s leadership class arose in response to the shootings, and so did his related club called AC4P [Actively Caring for People]. Also new are a slew of others programs promoting everything from daily kindness to the fight against childhood cancer.
There are a couple of things the district doesn’t do about 2/27. It doesn’t use metal detectors or require see-through book bags. Officials say they want students still to feel welcomed, not imprisoned.
And, for the past couple years, the schools have held no explicit commemorations of 2/27. No assemblies. No candle lightings. No moments of silence.
The high school principal, Doug Murray, says he’ll talk during Monday’s announcements about the district’s values and the students’ accomplishments this year. But he won’t mention the shooting. After consulting the staff and national researchers on trauma, he says it’s better to move forward than look back.
Joan Blackburn, one of the school’s social workers, agrees. “You want to focus on kindness and compassion but not necessarily connect it to that day,” she says. “You want to move people beyond.”
The Valentine’s revelers said the annual party helps them cope with grief better than a commemoration would. “Dance it off,” said ninth-grader Keaton Ziegenfuss.
“Everybody’s got to go forward.” said Keaton’s grandmother, Mary Vaccaro.
The party-goers saw no need to rehash the original 2/27. They all knew that T.J. Lane, due for a bus to his nearby Lake Academy, drew a .22-caliber handgun in the Chardon High cafeteria and shot six other students, three fatally: Demetrius Hewlin, Russell King Jr. and Daniel Parmertor.
Around the time of the first two anniversaries of 2/27, new events echoed the old. The day before the first anniversary, Lane pleaded guilty to six counts, one for each victim, including three counts of aggravated murder. At his sentencing hearing three weeks later, he mocked his victims and their families before being sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison without parole.
On the second anniversary, Russell King’s father was found dead in his bed in Chardon Township. The death was ruled the accidental result of heroin and ethanol.
In other seasons and years, a couple of suicides, a couple other drug deaths and Lane’s brief escape from prison have added to the community’s load.
This year, for the first time since 2012, 2/27 will fall on a Monday again. Tracy Jordan, victims advocate for the Geauga County sheriff, says the timing will make the day all the harder.
Chardon seems far from forgetting. Today’s high schoolers were mostly in middle school five years ago. But all the schools closed that day, and leaders say everyone in this tight-knit town felt stunned and bereft.
Locals still display many commemorative red ribbons and many signs with red hearts on black backgrounds, red and black being the schools’ colors. This May, the city plans to start construction of a Chardon Living Memorial Park.
But school leaders don’t want to force a reminder of 2/27 on a captive audience of staffers and students who may be in many different stages of recovery. Teachers are free to discuss the anniversary in their classes, but officials don’t know if anyone has exercised that option.
Teachers and students are also free, of course, to commemorate on their own time in their own ways. Keaton Ziegenfuss, for instance, said he’d probably pause Monday at home for a moment of silence before heading to school.
Members of a Facebook page for baby-boomers from Chardon High School were asked about the schools’ handling of the anniversaries. Opinions were split among commenters, many of whom had gone on to send children to the school.
“That horrible day is over,” wrote one member. “Leave it alone, the kids don’t need to hear about it every year. It’s over, move on.”
“The scars on our hearts will be there years to come,” wrote another. “We don’t need to be reminded.”
Some other members disagreed. “It is an extremely sad day in our history,” wrote one, “but we should not forget to honor those who are no longer with us.”
“We need to remember the past, or it might be repeated,” wrote another. “Maybe it’ll remind kids to treat others as they want to be treated.”
But 12th-grader David Nedrow said at the dance that it beat any solemnities.
“This is proof that there’s hope in such a dark time.”
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