‘Saipan not immune to gun violence’

The Valentine’s Day school shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida reminds Saipan Community School principal Amanda Dunn of the gun rampage on Saipan in November 2009.

The 2009 tragedy, which claimed the lives of five people, showed that the CNMI is not impervious to gun violence, Dunn said.

“Our school became very aware of the reality that Saipan is not immune to the tragedies happening in the U.S. mainland when a gunman opened fire in two locations across the island of Saipan in 2009,” she said.

At the time, Dunn was a teacher at SCS and the school immediately went into lockdown to secure the safety of their students. “The reality that this is possible has stayed with us in our administrative decision-making,” she said.

Learning from the 2009 experience has made Dunn and her administrative and teaching staff hype-aware about preventing similar situations.

“I believe that immediate communication is a crucial part of managing any situation of such stature. Our school has an SCS Whole School live chat which connects all of our teachers and staff in real-time throughout the day to their phones, classroom computers, and iPads,” she said.

Dunn also said the Florida school system would have been helped by zeroing in on the alleged shooter.

Investigators have released a statement that Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old suspect in the Parkland shooting that killed 17 students and teachers, is battling mental health disorder.

Dunn said that breaking down the negative stigma that is built around mental health helps the students recognize emotions and the way they react to their environment.

“Successfully teaching students about emotional health includes children learning how to respect their emotions rather than feel embarrassed or inconvenienced by them, how to manage their emotions and act constructively and how to respond to other people’s emotional reactions,” she said.

Dunn said SCS is at the forefront of such teaching techniques.

“We are working to break down the negative stigma that is built around mental health and want to hear from those who have had a mental health disorder and want to share their story…for better understanding,” she said.

Dunn moved to Saipan 11 years ago and was comforted by the fact that guns were not something she would have to worry about, as they were not readily available in the CNMI.

“Whose role is it to prevent shootings in schools? Is it a job of the school or the government? I prefer to not answer as a principal but as a parent…I think that there is a role at every level, as it takes a village or community to raise a child, to be an effective member of a community,” she said. “Home is the first place where a child’s education begins, the church has a very important role, the school and the government also have different vital roles in the upbringing and protection of our children.”

In November 2009, Li Zhongren went on a shooting rampage in Kannat Tabla, killing at least four people, two children, and wounding eight tourists. He later killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Banzai Cliff.