Brooke Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of the Addison-Rutland Supervisory Union, with Gov. Phil Scott Credit: John Walters
Gov. Phil Scott began his weekly press conference Thursday by recalling a tragedy and a near-tragedy that occurred the same week in February 2018. He cited the one-year anniversary of the “senseless, tragic and horrific” school shooting on February 14 in Parkland, Fla. — and the apparent plan by a Vermont teenager to commit a mass shooting at Fair Haven Union High School, which was thwarted just a day after Parkland.

The governor praised the Fair Haven community for its “courage in supporting each other.”

The arrest of 18-year-old Jack Sawyer and the revelation of his detailed plans to shoot “as many as I can get” proved to be a turning point for Scott. In the aftermath, the governor reversed his longstanding opposition to gun-safety legislation. In April, he signed a package of gun bills into law.

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Brooke Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of the Addison-Rutland Supervisory Union, spoke of the “tremendously resilient community” at the high school. “Everyone has banded together to really support one another,” she added.

At the same time, the aftereffects are still present. “Initially after the event, we did have an uptick in student absences,” Olsen-Farrell said. “Since that time, we have had an increase in students who have opted out on school choice or early college … We’re still working with traumatologists, and we have a therapy dog program and other pieces in place to help the students.”

At the press conference, Scott and Vermont-National Education Association president Don Tinney announced a competition for middle and high school students to create a public service announcement on the subject of “See Something, Say Something.” Prizes of $1,000 for first place, $500 for second and $250 for third will go to the video production programs at the winning teams’ schools.

Scott expressed a determination to keep school safety in the forefront.

“My fear is that if we don’t continue to talk about this, people will forget,” he said. “We take things for granted over time.”

He talked of last year’s $5 million grant program for school security improvements; his administration has proposed another $1.5 million in the 2020 budget. “I believe this may be an ongoing need,” he said. 

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John Walters was the political columnist for Seven Days from 2017-2019. A longtime journalist, he spent many years as a news anchor and host for public radio stations in Michigan and New Hampshire. He’s the author of Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New...

5 replies on “Walters: One Year Later, Fair Haven Still Resonates”

  1. Crime is at historical lows. Murder is at historical lows. Gun crime is also at, get this, historical lows.

    Hoplophobia is ridiculous in the face of these facts.

  2. “Doom” suggests that worrying about guns, which he or she terms “hoplophobia” is “ridiculous.” it’s not. “A steady rise in suicides involving firearms has pushed the rate of gun deaths in the US to its highest rate in more than 20 years, with almost 40,000 people killed in shootings in 2017, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The CDCs Wonder database shows that in 2017, 39,773 people in the US lost their lives at the point of a gun, marking the onward march of firearm fatalities in a country renowned for its lax approach to gun controls. When adjusted for age fluctuations, that represents a total of 12 deaths per 100,000 people up from 10.1 in 2010 and the highest rate since 1996.
    What that bare statistic represents in terms of human tragedy is most starkly reflected when set alongside those of other countries. According to a recent study from the Jama Network, it compares with rates of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people in Japan, 0.3 in the UK, 0.9 in Germany and 2.1 in Canada.

    Jama found that just six countries in the world are responsible for more than half of all 250,000 gun deaths a year around the globe. The US is among those six, together with Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/d…

  4. Suicide isn’t a crime, at least not one that is related to mass murder in the way you just decided to link it. Half of “gun deaths” are suicide. Most of the remainder are related to gang and drug violence.
    You also don’t include any other reason the us may have a higher suicide rate. There are plenty of other countries that have higher rates than the us, but you failed to include those.

  5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co…
    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk…
    And even suicide, not that it has anything to do with this, isn’t abnormal. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co…

    And while suicide is up slightly, “The CDC study found that 54% of Americans who died by suicide had no known mental health illness.”
    So at best, the most insane overreaching denial of gun rights based on some sort of mental health check wouldn’t even get half that “gun deaths” to go away.
    Your conflation from suicide, to gun deaths, to “lives lost at the point of a gun” hurts your argument.

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