In the year since Parkland shooting, a grieving mother and NJ native fights for school safety

In the despair after the Parkland school shooting, a single devastating moment shook so many Americans — when grieving mom Lori Alhadeff took a reporter’s microphone, looked at the camera and shared her pain with the world.

“The gunman, a crazy person, just walks into the school, knocks down the window of my child’s door and starts shooting, shooting her and killing her,” Alhadeff said, her outrage growing with each word.

“I just spent the last two hours putting the burial arrangements for my daughter’s funeral, who is 14,” she yelled. “President Trump, please do something. Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need safety now!”

Alhadeff has heeded her own call to action in the year since a shooter opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Florida. Her daughter Alyssa, a beloved athlete and ninth-grader who had grown up in Woodcliff Lake, was among 17 people killed that day.

Since the shooting, Alhadeff has transformed from a stay-at-home mom who “was never a political person” into an organizer who founded a nonprofit called Make Our Schools Safe, won a seat on the school board and worked to influence political leaders all the way up to the White House. In doing so, she has joined a growing legion of parent activists who lost children to school shootings and are devoting their lives to prevent further violence.

On Thursday, Alhadeff visited the state capital in Trenton to witness Gov. Phil Murphy sign legislation, named Alyssa’s Law, which requires schools to install silent panic alarms that can alert law enforcement in an emergency. She will continue using her voice to push for change in honor of her daughter and the 16 others who died in the Parkland shooting, she said.   

“On Feb. 14, I had no control,” Alhadeff, 44, said in an interview with NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey. “Alyssa was taken in seconds. After that I just felt that — and still l feel that — Alyssa is with me. Alyssa is in my heart and she wants me to make sure this doesn’t happen ever again, and I need to be her voice now since her voice was silenced.”

Remembering Alyssa

The Alhadeffs moved from Woodcliff Lake in Bergen County five years ago to Parkland, seeking the family-friendly neighborhoods and top schools where they believed their children would be safe.

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Alhadeff, a College of New Jersey graduate and former health and physical education teacher, had what she described as “the perfect life.” A self-professed “soccer mom,” she spent time taking her kids to practices and games, and fundraising for their teams. She played tennis and made dinner daily for her three children, including two sons, who are now 11 and 14, and husband, Ilan, who is a doctor.

Alhadeff described her first child, Alyssa, as full of joy and potential. A “phenomenal” soccer player who played midfield and was captain of her team, she dreamed of one day becoming a professional for the women's national team. She was a typical teen who loved boys, going out, having fun and hanging out at the beach, said her mother.

One of Alyssa’s favorite places had been Long Beach Island on the Jersey shore, where her family has a house and where they vacationed every summer. Alyssa loved riding waves and walking in the sand.

“Alyssa was so full of life,” Alhadeff said. “She had a beautiful smile and a laugh that was so contagious. She had an ability to bring people together.”

On Valentine’s Day last year, Alhadeff rushed to the Parkland high school after hearing about shots fired. As she stood behind a police barrier outside the school, she learned her daughter was among the victims. Alyssa had been shot 10 times while in English class. 

“I lived in the Parkland bubble,” Alhadeff said. “I never thought in a million years that my daughter would be shot 10 times in her school as she tried to learn.”

The next day, she visited her daughter in the morgue. Alhadeff's gaze swept across her daughter's body, “just looking at all the different places that she was shot.” She recalls trying to warm Alyssa’s cold body with her hands. Then Alhadeff left to arrange her daughter’s funeral.

After that unimaginable morning, Alhadeff headed to the site where mourners and media had gathered near the school. She felt an urge to speak out.

“To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to say,” she said.

She walked along a line of reporters until she found one who agreed to hand over a microphone. The trauma she felt spilled out in an unwavering, emotional plea to the public.

“President Trump, you say what can you do?” she said on CNN, her voice clear and pained. “You can stop the guns from getting into these children’s hands. Put metal detectors at every entrance to the schools. What can you do? You can do a lot. This is not fair to our families, that our children go to school and have to get killed!”

While Alhadeff observed shiva, the seven-day mourning period of the Jewish faith, many people approached her and talked about the need for change. She knew she had to act, she said.

As a former teacher skilled at outreach and public speaking, Alhadeff quickly took to activism and launched Make Our Schools Safe a month after her daughter was killed. In August, she was elected to the Broward County School Board.

Making schools safer

The organization led by Alhadeff and her husband has promoted "safe zones" or marked-off areas in classrooms that are out of sight of windows, code-red drills to practice what to do if a gunman enters a school, and buying kits to treat traumatic injuries. They support “Dream Team” clubs for students to work with school administrators to improve safety.

“We have to do everything possible to stop allowing a shooter to just walk onto campus,” Alhadeff said. “Our schools are soft targets and there are different parts of making schools safer.”

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In New Jersey, Alhadeff backed the panic-alarm bill renamed in her daughter’s honor and signed into law last week. She recently spoke about the measure before Trump’s cabinet in the White House and asked them to consider making it federal law, she said.

 But Alhadeff's advocacy group does not push for gun control. That’s because it’s polarizing, said Alhadeff, and she feared it would slow down improvements that schools can make right away.

“I know people are fighting that fight with the guns and I appreciate it,” she said. “I want to try to initiate things we can accomplish and all agree on now.”

Despite a lack of federal action, Alhadeff is encouraged by states’ efforts to improve school safety. She has praised the federal government's recommendations in a post-Parkland report on school safety, including calls for more school-based police officers and mental health services.

She also hopes more funding will be made available for school safety. “There has been progress, but obviously we have a long way to go,” she said.

A painful anniversary

On the morning of Feb. 14, family and friends will visit Alyssa’s grave at the Garden of Aaron at Star of David Memorial Gardens in North Lauderdale, Florida. In the afternoon, they’ll head to a local beach that Alyssa loved for a clean-up and a day of service. There, they will write messages to Alyssa in the sand.

That night, they’ll join community members at a public memorial service. It’s about “being together and doing a lot of crying and healing and just getting through the day,” Alhadeff said.

After that, it’s another day.

“I just keep pushing,” Alhadeff said. “I get up every morning with short-term goals for the day. I have to just be out there in the public talking with people, trying to make change and trying to make a difference.

“This is the way that I am healing, by using my voice as my power to accomplish things, to make a difference, to honor my daughter and to honor the 16 others and to make sure their death is not in vain.”