PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Social workers at Saul High School on Wednesday started counseling classmates of Nicolas Elizalde, the student killed in Tuesday’s gunfire after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School.
Elizalde, 14, of Havertown played football for nearby Roxborough because Saul doesn’t have a football team.
Coincidentally, officials say, Elizalde’s grandmother was at an anti-gun violence event in Chester, Pa., on Tuesday, hours before he was gunned down.
State Rep. and Roxborough alumnus Malcolm Kenyatta was also there.
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“Every part of this is brutal. This is senseless,” Kenyatta said, “and my heart is with the family who is just dealing with unimaginable pain right now … but also with these young people, who now have classmates who are never going to be the same.”
At Saul, the mood was somber as students and staff help each other through a sudden death and come to terms with the fact that Elizalde would not be in class with them anymore.
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“It's really sad,” Assistant Superintendent Ted Domers told KYW Newsradio. “They're grieving. And they're working together. And we're making sure that we have those supports for them.”
Counselors and social workers are available to help students who were close to Elizalde, Domers said.
“Every trauma is unique and different in its own way. We know that we need to have the specialists. We know that we need to tailor supports for different students,” he said. “But to be able to predict and say the kids are going to respond ‘this way’ — we never know.”
The counselors will assess the needs of individual students and continue to support them as needed.
“I think one of the things about educators is we respond to the needs of the students. When we get in that mode, and we're supporting the students, then that's where we process our grief,” Domers said.
“There's no playbook. This is what we have for today. And then we have a team that will reassess tonight, and then we'll be back here tomorrow.”
He said other schools have sent coffee for the faculty, and people are reaching out in other ways. Domers said school district leadership will make sure that support is sustained.
The four other victims survived the shooting Tuesday and are recovering. There are crisis counselors at Roxborough, as well, and a strong police presence remains at the school.