Superintendent of the Audubon Community School District, Brett Gibbs, said the school’s crisis team met Saturday and about 90 staff members came together on Sunday to console each other and prepare to help their nearly 500 students this morning (Monday) after the tragic death of 8th grader, Jamison Steckler, and 5th grader, Gavin Steckler, in a car accident on Interstate 80 Saturday morning.
Gibbs said school officials have teamed up with ministerial organizations, Heartland Area Education Agency and the school’s counselors to work with students. They have also created a Safe room for the students to be able to express their grief in that safe environment. The room and the support, he said, will be in place for however long it takes for the children to process the tragedy. The experts are telling them to keep everything as normal as possible, but they have cancelled the Monday night 5th through 12th grade music concert. They will reschedule that for a later time. The administration will continue to let students and parents know about any plans as they become available. Gibbs said the most important thing for the students is to allow them to go through the grieving process.
Gibbs says parents can help their children through this difficult time as well.
He said that if parents are seeing signs that do not seem to be a natural part of the grieving process, they need to contact the school so they can work together to help the student.
