The shooting killed three students and a teacher. A parent fatally shot the 16-year-old assailant, a former Silver Rail student. In the weeks since, the Bend-La Pine community has mobilized to support students, families, and staff.

On Wednesday, the day before the reopening, students and parents gathered at Flowers by Eryn & Company, a local flower shop, to create bouquets for teachers. The event was organized by Nicole Ybarrondo, a Silver Rail parent who founded the Silver Rail Community Fund, which paid for the flowers, coffee, and tacos from neighboring shops. Children colored and wrote messages for their teachers, wrapping notes around the bouquets. One child dedicated flowers to the “best substitute ever”; another wrote “I love you” to a favorite teacher.

“It’s an act of service to Silver Rail staff,” Ybarrondo said. Outside, kids tie-dyed T-shirts and played with Play-Doh, and at one point threw fallen leaves at each other, laughing while parents watched.

Across town, Bend-La Pine school district officials showed families and reporters the preparations made for reopening. The memorial of flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals outside the school was moved; sandwich boards thanked the community and noted that items left on school grounds would be gathered and stored daily. Police tape was gone, replaced by chalk messages of love and strength.

Inside, a teacher created a display of books and stuffed animals to greet students. A colorful mountainscape mural by local artist Sheila Dunn covers a temporary wall over the door to the special education classroom where the shooting took place. Students assembled bags of sensory items to use if they need a break during the school day.

“What we noticed is that some families were wanting to go right to their teachers,” said Sarah Barclay, president of the Bend Education Association, the teachers’ union. “They love them, they want to see them.”

The district brought in about seven substitute teachers and extra mental health support, Superintendent Steve Cook said. Jim Boen, regional director for mental and behavioral health at the High Desert Education Service District, will be on hand. Barclay called Boen a “calming presence.”

Mike McCart, a clinical child psychologist with the National Mass Violence Center, was called in by the district after the shooting. He said returning to school can be a community’s first milestone in healing.

“It is people coming together, loving one another, supporting one another, being with one another,” McCart said. “That connection has a natural effect to bring about a healing process.”

He added that the school building holds many happy memories. “That building has a lot of memories of joy,” he said. “And while it might be hard to return to a place like this where something tragic happened, it also is a place where students and teachers have spent many, many hours of their days laughing, being with one another, learning.”

School board Chair Amy Tatom said learning may not be the first priority in the initial days back. “Learning doesn’t happen in someone who’s emotionally dysregulated or experiencing significant distress,” Tatom said. “Our students and our staff are entering that building at different levels of readiness.”

Barclay described the return as similar to an in-service week, with more time to talk and ask questions before academics resume.

Support has come from across Bend. Mychal Threets, a librarian and new host of Reading Rainbow, visited the city after offering on social media to come. With help from Deschutes County Library and staff from Roundabout Books and Cafe, he hosted storytimes at nine Bend elementary schools over two days this week. The Silver Rail storytime was held at a different elementary school and drew about 20 to 30 people.

“That was more than enough because I think it means that they needed something like a story time, a chance to come together with their classmates,” Threets said. “It was just extremely emotional just because of what happened, but I love that you couldn’t necessarily see those emotions in the kids. They were just there for the first time in a while, surrounded by people who truly love them.”

At Mountain View High School, teacher Trevor Tusow said the return to routine has been comforting but also tinged with guilt. “I almost feel a little bit guilty that I have the opportunity to return to some normalcy, understanding that some people’s normal is forever changed,” he said. In his criminal justice class, students initially had no questions about the shooting, but the next day a single question opened a 30-minute discussion. “They were incredibly caring in their questions, but there was a lot of curiosity about what will happen in this situation, and then what are we doing to make sure that these things are less likely to happen,” Tusow said. “You could almost feel a little bit of tension come off. They were like, ‘Oh this is a safe place to be able to ask questions.’”

The district’s long-term plan includes a resiliency hub to connect families with services beyond the school system. “The vision for that hub will be that it’s a long-term solution to help support the entire community in their recovery from this event,” Cook said. “If we do that well as a community, that hub will exist for many years to come.”

Not all staff are returning immediately. Barclay estimated that of the 30 Silver Rail staff members in the union, about five are considering long-term leave, and others will take days off throughout the year. The union negotiated an extra 20 days for Silver Rail employees, plus 10 additional days for district educators with children at the school. “I think that’s been a relief to some folks just to know that stability is there and they can count on those 20 days as a base to build their own healing plan off of,” Barclay said.

She called Silver Rail teachers “the strongest, most brave people” she’s met. “To be processing a tragedy like this, and come to the conclusion that they want to go back and reclaim their school and their space, where they’re having to return without colleagues and without students that were there before, it’s just absolutely incredible,” she said. “To see them come together to do that is amazing.”

Some families are choosing to transfer their children to other district elementary schools or to homeschool, though the district did not provide enrollment updates. Janelle Chance, a former Silver Rail third-grade teacher now working at Healing Reins, an equine therapy program, began working with groups of Silver Rail students this week. She recalled speaking with the mother of a student who was in an adjacent classroom on the day of the shooting. “I asked her, ‘Are you planning on going back tomorrow?’ and she said, ‘We’re going to try,’” Chance said.

At a school board meeting this week, one Silver Rail parent told the board they had failed. Tatom acknowledged the anger. “I’m a primary care provider, so acknowledging that when people have experienced trauma, often it comes out in big emotions, and people need a place to direct their anger,” she said. “If that needs to be directed at me, I can take that. I can take that on for my community.”

As students and staff return, the community’s focus remains on support and healing. “We know and understand and recognize that’s our, not just our responsibility, but our want to help support them through that entire journey,” Cook said.