A Denver Public Schools seventh-grader reads to a community gathering on May 29, 2019 from a last will and testament she wrote in her cellphone notes after a recent lockdown at her middle school. (Photo by Grace Carson)
The girl, a seventh grader, tiny in an oversized red T-shirt, her hair pulled back into a bun, stood before a group of adults she did not know, pulled out her cell phone and said, “So, this is my will.”
“[My best friend] Blake,” she read with her voice shaking, “gets $200, and my best wish is that she gets to become a professional soccer player.”
The girl, whose name was Ellie, said her mom had discovered her will in the notes of her cell phone after her middle school’s last school lockdown. She recalled telling her mom: I wrote it in case I am ever killed in a school shooting.
The crowd around her, about 50 people, most of them adults, listened in emotional silence. A woman clenched her chest and tears rolled down her face. Among those listening was a panel of state lawmakers and Denver Public Schools’ board members and administrators. All gathered in the wake of this month’s STEM school shooting and the subsequent student anger when a memorial took on political overtones. They said they wanted to hear directly from students about how gun violence affects them and how they want state lawmakers and DPS administrators to respond.
“Here in Colorado, in the state where Columbine happened, we live in a constant state of fear,” said moderator Erica Meltzer, Colorado bureau chief at Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news site focusing on education. The event was organized and sponsored by Denver Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation (INC), a volunteer nonprofit coalition of Denver’s neighborhoods.
