Students across the nation return to school after Connecticut shooting

Lily Rosell anxiously weighed whether to take her 7-year-old daughter to school Monday morning, the first day of classes since the Connecticut elementary school massacre that left 20 children around her child's age dead.

"I was dreading it," Rosell said outside her daughter's Miami elementary school. "I'm panicking here to be honest."

Rosell said she was looking at vans and any signs of something suspicious.

"Ultimately, if this is going to happen like it is nowadays, it could happen in a movie theater, at the mall, anywhere," she said. "It's now about being in the prayer closet a little more often."

Teachers and parents across the country were wrestling with how best to quell children's fears about returning to school for the first time since the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

In Phoenix, it was no different.

Roosevelt School District officials had to ease the fears of a grandmother who was scared to leave her grandchild alone at school.

Schools across the Valley are getting e-mails, phones calls and drop-ins from concerned parents. 

Denice Willis is trying to stay strong for her two little girls and said she's just grateful for the opportunity to be dropping them off.

"Unfortunately some of the parents in Connecticut won't be able to experience this anymore. Instead of getting them ready for school, they're getting them ready for memorial services and I just can't even begin to imagine what that's like," said Willis.

A Valley teacher said something similar.

"I'm just thankful to be able to go back to school and be with the kids and hug them. There's nerves, of course, a little bit but I just try not to think about it," said Kelly Kleinz.

Valley schools are addressing fears in different ways.

The Chandler Unified School District sent out a memo on Friday to all staff with tips on how to talk to students about death and tragedy and how to spot grief.

The Gilbert Unified School District updated its website with a message to parents outlining the district's actions to keep their kids safe.

Police officers are on hand at Peoria Unified School District schools Monday to answer questions from students and parents.

Meanwhile, Chicago resident Melissa Tucker dropped her 9-year-old child off at Jahn Elementary School on Monday morning. She also has two older children.

"I really was worried about sending them to school," Tucker said. "I actually was going to keep them home today and make further calls to the school to make sure what the school is doing to protect people from coming in and out of the school and making sure the doors are locked at all times."

She said she did make those calls and learned the school would be taking extra precautions to make sure all students entering and leaving the building were where they were supposed to be and safe. She said she plans to make another stop later Monday to speak to school staff.

"Now I see why parents want to home school their children," Tucker said.

In Fairfax County, Va., just outside the nation's capital, schools deployed extra police as a precaution. In the elementary schools, teachers were told to acknowledge the shootings if students brought it up, but to direct discussion of the shootings to home rather than the classroom.

By the time Richard Cantlupe received the news of the Connecticut school shooting that left 20 children dead, his students about 50 miles north of Miami had already gone home for the weekend.

And so the American history teacher at Westglades Middle School in Parkland, Fla., was bracing himself for an onslaught of painful, often unanswerable questions when they returned to class Monday.

"It's going to be a tough day," he said. "This was like our 9/11 for school teachers."

School administrators have pledged to add police patrols, review security plans and make guidance counselors available.

And yet, it was pretty near impossible to eliminate the anxiety and apprehension many were feeling.

"For them, you need to pretend that you're OK," said Jessica Kornfeld, the mother of 10-year-old twins in Pinecrest, Fla., a suburb of Miami. "But it's scary."

Connecticut Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor said his agency was sending a letter to school superintendents across the state Sunday evening, providing a list of written prompts for classroom teachers to help them address the shooting in Newtown with their students.

"In many instances, teachers will want to discuss the events because they are so recent and so significant, but they won't necessarily know how to go about it," he said.

Cantlupe said he will tell his students that his No. 1 job is to keep them safe, and that like the teachers in Connecticut, he would do anything to make sure they stay out of harm's way. He is also beginning to teach about the Constitution and expects to take questions on the Second Amendment.

In an effort to ensure their students' safety and calm parents' nerves, school districts across the United States have asked police departments to increase