Annunciation parents celebrate school safety wins
In February, Annunciation Catholic Church and School students and parents started the Minnesota legislative session with hope.Dozens in dark blue uniforms and hoodies bearing the Annunciation logo, shaped into a heart, circled in the State Capitol rotunda for a sing-along event. They drew smiles and tears with uplifting songs like Andra Day’s “Rise Up.”Throughout, volunteers read off lawmaker names, working through a list of representatives from every Minnesota district. Each section ended with: “We hold them in hope.”The community was just months out from the Aug. 27 mass shooting at Annunciation that still shadows their days. This session was their chance to ensure no other tragedy like that strikes again in Minnesota.Mike Moyski hosted the event with his wife, Jackie Flavin. The couple’s 10-year-old daughter Harper Moyski was one of two children killed in the shooting.“The main point of this is just to wish all the legislators that are making really, really important decisions, goodwill as they go in and do so,” Moyski said at the time.Mike Moyski and Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz join students in a sing-a-long of Prince’s “Purple Rain” in the rotunda at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Feb. 26.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsA group of Annunciation parents began organizing last fall and hastened to form the nonprofit Annunciation Light Alliance, solidify a mission and launch a coordinated effort before the start of the Minnesota Legislature’s session.They took a nonpartisan stance and sought a layered approach to preventing gun violence with hopes of gaining support from both sides of the aisle. Parents backed a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as more mental health support funding, funding for school safety programs, safeguards for children online — whatever may help.If there was ever a time that gun control bills could bridge political divides in Minnesota, it should have been this one. This session was also the first since the assassination of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and the shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette in June 2025.Yet the issue remained polarized through session end in May. While lawmakers agreed additional school safety measures are needed, they split along party lines on the best approach.DFL legislators proposed a range of firearm restrictions that included requiring safe storage of firearms and banning assault-style weapons, large-capacity magazines and ghost guns, which don’t have a serial number. State Republicans favored increased funding for mental health and school safety programs at all schools, in addition to increased penalties for firearm-related crimes.The Minnesota Senate, with its slight DFL majority, passed a comprehensive package with firearm restrictions and school safety provisions in early May.However, the state House — split 67-67 between parties — did not bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Companion bills also failed to make it out of committee. With Annunciation families at the CapitolDemocrats unveil gun violence prevention billsMinnesota Senate approves firearm restrictionsschool safety funding; fate is murkier in HouseIn Minnesota Legislature’s final weekquestions remain on school safety, fraud preventionSit-in, sharp words over gun billfeed tumult in legislative session’s final daysDespite the standstill, Annunciation parent leaders told MPR News they are proud — and determined to press forward.“We didn’t get everything that we were looking for, so that’s disappointing but doesn’t slow us down,” Moyski said. “We’re happy with some of what was accomplished this year.”Celebrating the winsState lawmakers passed two laws that advocates say will save lives. One adds guardrails around social media accounts for Minnesota minors. Another requires schools to set up anonymous threat reporting systems, which allow people to report tips about potential threats and help with interventions before at-risk individuals harm themselves or others.“That’s a really big deal,” said Brittany Haeg, parent of three Annunciation students and co-chair of the Annunciation Light Alliance.A database of U.S. mass shootings since 1966 revealed most school shooters tell someone about their plans, typically a classmate, according to the Violence Prevention Project. Helping bystanders report concerns is critical, said Haeg. Online spaces like social media are also where shooters find inspiration.“Having parental controls is not a perfect solution, but it’s a start,” she said.Annunciation parent Brittany Haeg, whose son David was shot during the Annunciation shooting, testifies at a Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee hearing at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Feb. 24.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsThe social media restrictions are effective July 1, 2027. Schools must implement anonymous threat reporting systems by July 1, 2028.Annunciation parents started their work with realistic expectations, learning from the experiences of other impacted families across the country. Politicians had also warned them not to expect anything, according to Haeg.“We didn’t walk into this thinking this was a one-session project. We walked into this thinking this is the first of many legislative sessions,” she said.Annunciation parents and students were among the many voices that testified both in and outside the Capitol at press conferences, community gatherings, committee hearings and private meetings with lawmakers to advance conversations on gun violence prevention.Annunciation Light Alliance co-chair Kristen Neville, who has five children at Annunciation, said it’s huge that the state Senate passed the package they did and said many credit the school community for having an impact at the State Capitol, driving forward a more layered approach to solutions.“I really want our community, and I want people across Minnesota, to see that what happened over the course of this session are things that — we should be really proud,” Neville said.“Now people are really thinking about what it means to keep their kids safe and what gun violence means a little bit more comprehensively than just the guns themselves,” she added.Annunciation Light Alliance leaders said they will continue holding community conversations on gun violence prevention to get people involved with shared solutions. They will also reevaluate what policies they want to support in the future.“We got thrown into this, and now we have a summer and a fall to continue learning, to continue building relationships,” Haeg said. “And going into the next legislative session, we aren’t starting from zero. We’re starting from a foundation that exists now.”Annunciation parent Kristen Neville films as Jackie Flavin and Mike Moyski testify during a Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee hearing at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Feb. 24.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsKey supportersAnnunciation parents found support — and built their nonprofit strategy —with lessons from other families impacted by gun violence. Sandy Hook parents, in particular, were key allies.They formed the Sandy Hook Promise after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children and six adults dead. In the 13 years since, those parents have lobbied U.S. Congress and state governments across the country to protect children from gun violence.Co-founder and CEO Nicole Hockley deemed Minnesota’s recent legislative session “a major victory” for the Annunciation Light Alliance.“This is significant that they achieved that win, especially in the first session,” Hockley said. “That has not been my experience with Sandy Hook Promise and in other states. Sometimes it can take multiple sessions to get there, so they should be very, very proud of themselves and their impact.”Hockley said Sandy Hook Promise started lobbying four months after the 2012 shooting and found legislators in Washington, D.C. had little interest in expanded background checks at the time. Public will and political influence for gun violence prevention has grown over time, she said, and Minnesota benefitted from evidence of measures in other states, as well as the collective voices of Annunciation families.Sandy Hook Promise already had a presence in Minnesota before the Annunciation shooting. They helped pass a bill regulating active shooter drills in 2023 and have relationships with schools statewide, according to Hockley. After last summer, Sandy Hook leaders became a critical resource for both Annunciation families and lawmakers navigating what to do next.Sandy Hook Promise leaders testified at the Minnesota State Capitol this year — and remain available to chat with Annunciation parents whenever needed. Their advice and best practices helped shape the Annunciation Light Alliance’s strategy. One key lesson they shared: Stay nonpartisan, even when it’s challenging.“Keeping kids safe is not a partisan issue, but it has become politicized in so many ways,” Hockley said.For Hockley, who lost her 6-year-old son Dylan in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook, each mass shooting hurts. More so knowing her organization has a proven model for preventing gun violence.“It rips the scab off my heart all over again, and it dumps me back to December 14, 2012,” she said. “That ongoing trauma is not something that you ever really get past, but you just have to build the tools to figure out how to deal with that for yourself.”She finds resilience in sharing success stories and working to prevent other shootings.Asked what changes she thought would be most helpful for keeping children safe nationwide, Hockley said mandatory secure firearm storage and anonymous reporting systems — as Minnesota lawmakers approved — would be “game changers.”“That is something, like, if I could snap my fingers and have that happen overnight, I would do that in a moment. And there’s a lot of bipartisan support for those conversations, so there’s a lot of room to work with there,” she said.The long haulAmid the grueling work of lobbying for change, Annunciation parents help their children heal from the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual damage of the Aug. 27 tragedy.“For a lot of us, we’re still really in the thick of what recovery is,” Haeg said.Haeg’s youngest son David, then 6 years old, was shot multiple times during the Annunciation shooting and has bullet remnants embedded across his body. She said he is the youngest child to be wounded in a U.S. school shooting and survive.In February, Haeg told lawmakers about all the providers he has to see, six months after the shooting. She listed appointments for therapy, sleep therapy, physical therapy, medication management, feeding management and neurology, among others.“Hours in waiting rooms, hours in therapy, hours spent talking about nightmares and panic and lead mitigation, instead of spelling words and riding bikes,” she testified.Brittany Haeg holds her son David, who was shot in the Annunciation shooting last August, outside the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Feb. 23.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsIn May, Haeg told MPR News her family’s baseline is seven appointments a week between her three children, on top of after-school activities like basketball and cheer team. This posed a challenge with lobbying at the State Capitol, which often entailed short notice about hearings to rally testifiers for. High burnout work, she called it.“It is hard to balance and make decisions about, ‘Can I drop what I’m doing? Is there someone who can be back up at home so that I can be there? Where is the balance of those priorities?’” she said. “And I think one of the things that has gotten me through it, and I hope others, is that we’ve been good at supporting each other when we need to tap in and out.”Neville said Sandy Hook Promise leaders advised prioritizing self-care in advocacy work. “Because this is a long game,” she recalled being told. “Because this is not something that’s going to happen overnight, and you’re going to have times where it feels like you’ve been punched in the stomach.”She felt that way at the Capitol when lawmakers read from the shooter’s manifesto — research shows platforming mass shooter inspires others — and another argued that the bill would ban specific types of semi-automatic rifles used for squirrel hunting.Those were times when Neville had to step back, noting an “emotional and physical drain.”“We’ve been criticized as being used for political theater, and this is not political theater. This is our life. This is our every single day,” she said.With the school year end comes new challenges for Annunciation families. For hers, Haeg said recovery has been reliant on routine. She said typical summer activities like camp are not an option because she can’t expect every camp leader or attendee to know how to handle trauma.“It’s been a very emotional transition,” she said.Despite this, Annunciation Light Alliance leaders said they’re determined to hold frank, difficult conversations in Minnesota about protecting children.“There is a narrative that the whole conversation is just about guns … My kid lives with the remnants of what an AR-15 can do in his body and so a piece of that conversation is always going to be about guns,” Haeg said. “But I hope that doesn’t come at the expense of everything that leads up to it.”
تم النشر: 2026-06-08 10:00:00
مصدر: www.mprnews.org
