BUFFALO, N.Y. — A decade ago, Carly Posey joined a now-continually growing list of parents to receive an unimaginable call when a 20-year-old shooter entered Sandy Hook Elementary and killed 26 of her children’s classmates and teachers.
“Ten years ago, I did not think I'd be sitting here,” she said. “I had kids, just like any other parent, sent my kids to school, thinking they would come home safe. That changed on December 14, 2012.”
Since that fateful day, Posey has dedicated her life to traveling across the country to different communities, school districts, and universities to educate them on how to prepare for an experience she hopes no other parent ever has to bear.
On Wednesday, Posey will use her experience as a parent of survivors from the deadliest elementary school shooting in U.S. history to address upwards of 700 school and law enforcement personnel from across the region as Erie County’s annual Safe Schools Initiative Seminar keynote speaker.
“I just hope that they have some takeaways that they can take right back to their school, right back to the community, and implement and be that champion and go back and do something,” Posey said.
Attendees will hear from a range of speakers touching on lockdown drills, emergency response protocol, and anticipating the unthinkable.
But Posey believes those conversations start at home.
“We need to be teaching [children] what to do, just like we teach them what to do if there's a tornado, just like what we teach them to do if there's lightning,” she said. “So it's in that same conversation that we can teach them what to do if there's violence at their school.”
Her timely advice is on all parents’ minds, as Monday’s tragedy in Nashville marks the 17th school shooting in the United States in 2023.
That chilling reality is putting all parents and school districts on high alert with the hopes that they won’t be next.
“I don't think we can forget these events,” Posey said. “An event happens, we forget. We get complacent. An event happens, we're in this cycle. So these are happening. We don’t have to wait for tomorrow for another one to happen. What can we do today?”
The doors at Rockwell Hall will open at 7:30 a.m. and the event will be free of charge for all participants.