‘We are all feeling this tragedy': Santa Rosa educator shares grief after Texas shooting

As an educator and mom to a third-grade student, Maria Jasso felt a twofold sting of the Uvalde, Texas shooting.

Jasso, founder and co-director of Little Wildflowers Preschool in Santa Rosa, was on campus Tuesday when a news alert flashed across her phone indicating 19 students and two teachers had been killed.

“Right away, my heart started pounding,” she said.

She agonized for the children and their families and worried for the 24 students, ages 2 to 5, under her and her staff’s care. She thought about her own young daughter, too.

In the days since the shooting, Jasso and her business partner Evelyn Contreras have fielded emails from parents expressing grief and horror over the Texas tragedy.

They’ve assured parents their children are cared for and loved at the preschool and that they’re creating a safe environment for them while away from their homes.

The words can ring hollow after such a catastrophe, but Jasso says her duty extends to even worst-case threats like an active shooter.

“We absolutely know that if anything were to happen we would do anything possible to protect them,” she said. “These students are like our children, an extension of me, and I have the responsibility to protect them.”

Jasso, 35, was born in Mexico and went through the K-12 school system in Santa Rosa, where she has lived for 33 years. She earned her associate degree in early childhood education at Santa Rosa Junior College in 2009 and has been teaching for more than a decade.

She was called to teaching by the fulfillment of instilling students with knowledge and skills that can help them throughout their lives.

It’s that and the daily excitement of a buzzing classroom that keep her in the profession despite the many challenges — her preschool opened at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which plunged the nation into an even deeper generational crisis in education.

And now, with the news out of Texas, Jasso worries schools can no longer be counted on as a safe haven for kids.

Parents in Uvalde sent their children to school not knowing it was the last time they’d see them alive. They were doing the right thing, encouraging them to get an education, she said.

“Although we’re obviously not in Texas, this is something every parent feels,” she said. “This is beyond Texas, this is all of us. We are all feeling this tragedy.”

On Friday, as she reflected in an interview, Jasso said her heart felt tight. It was her daughter’s last day in school, but she couldn’t shake the mix of anxiety and dread that have gripped her since Tuesday.

The following day, when she dropped her daughter off at school, the energy on campus “had shifted,” she said. Parents were clearly shaken.

She hugged and kissed her daughter and immediately began counting the minutes until she would pick her up at the end of the day. Other parents embraced their kids extra long, too, she said.

“I just want this feeling to go away for all of us,” she said. “I wish no parent had to feel this feeling like they’re holding their breath because they dropped off their child at elementary school.

“Unfortunately, I think right now a lot of us are feeling this way.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.