'Willing to do anything': Educator speaks on gravity of another school shooting

CARY, N.C. (WTVD) -- It was hard for parents to send their children to school Wednesday on the heels of another mass school shooting.

"They continue to happen every single week, year after year," Wake County parent Lauren Vukina said. "I feel like we should feel good about sending our kids to school and to be scared to send out kids to school just isn't fair."

She's not the only concerned parent cherishing their child's return.

"It should be the safest place they go to other than home," Wake County parent Shawn Allen Fitzpatrick said.

Kristin Beller is NCAE-Wake County President now after years in a classroom.

She was teaching fourth grade when the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happened. Beller knows the delicate balance and various roles an educator plays in these types of situations starting first with the parents.

"To hear their grief, their anxiety, their worry about their child, to communicate to them you're willing to do anything in the world to protect their child," said Beller.

The work then transitions to making children comfortable and open to learning.

"That adult is so masterful ... at being able to hold both, the emotional needs of students, and the curriculum and academic needs of students," said Beller.

She has always felt that parents are grateful.

Beller wishes there was more support from lawmakers and that they were striving to find ways to create safer learning environments.

"It is incredibly disappointing and insulting, and shameful ... would not only refuse to talk about it but when other lawmakers brought it up in the Senate education meeting," said Beller.

Beller says the Wake County Public School System does have a program to help educators cope with the enormity of it all.