While celebrating Lunar New Year festivities on January 21, 2023, the city of Monterey Park faced the deadliest mass shooting in the recent history of Los Angeles County. Tens of thousands of residents gathered nearby for a two-day festival that began on Lunar New Year’s Eve. The Star Ballroom Dance Studio, which was located less than a block away from the festivities, was where the gunman first appeared during a countdown celebration party separate from the street festival on West Garvey Avenue. Gunfire was reported at the Star Ballroom at 10:22 p.m., with police arriving within three minutes when ten people were already pronounced dead at the scene. This moment of national news brought our small town into the limelight and shook the communities around it. This incident was only three blocks from Mark Keppel High School, where this newspaper is based. So the question is, how did our district and school handle the situation?

The school week following the incident, the Alhambra Unified School District invited mental healthcare professionals to the school to provide support and comfort for anyone who needed it. Keppel sophomore Ava Shimamoto said, “Mental health counselors were a great resource, allowing us to visit them if we needed a break from the classroom. I think a majority of teachers at school are very understanding when students have personal issues going on. For example, Ms. Bradford told my class she didn’t mind if anyone needed to step out of the classroom for a breather”.

On the other hand, Galicia Castellanos, a senior from the school, thought that “our school handled the situation okay, but I felt like they could have provided longer counselor visits.”

Josephine Kim, senior, agreed, “When it comes to shootings or other situations like this, it is hard to provide long-term support. I think our teachers gave accommodations, but I think it’s more than just a couple of weeks for people who lost family members or friends. It’s more than just a couple of days of accommodations. Grief is difficult to handle, and counseling may not work for all because everyone deals with trauma differently.”

Rae Liu, a senior, also added that she thinks, “Keppel has been very active about addressing the situation and providing resources for students, but more can definitely be done,” She believes, “there could have been more open discussion about gun safety and other social issues. In terms of resources, there were many counseling resources I wished the school had implemented, such as mental health screenings, student education, or partnering with local mental health providers…”.

It has been a couple of months since the shooting at Star Dance Studio, but how are our students and staff handling their mental health after the incident?

“My initial reaction to the shooting was shock followed by fear since the incident happened during the Lunar New Year’s festival in our city, which should have been a time of celebration. Both of these emotions were very intense at first because it was the first time gun violence was happening so close to home. It broke my ‘numbness’ to the headlines about other mass shootings in America and reminded me that gun violence has yet to be addressed. It has definitely affected me more or less, as I’m more careful of my surroundings when going outside and more attentive to news about gun violence. Over time, I have recovered somewhat from what has occurred. However, it is unsurprising that many others in our community are still affected by the magnitude of the tragedy,” says Rae Liu.

One of the Mandarin teachers here at Mark Keppel, Mr. Lien said that his family was not personally affected by the shooting but, “knew that my students may need the support. I wanted to make sure they were okay. I always want to be available if they need to talk to or support me. Because we had to cancel all activities and celebrations for the Lunar New Year, I asked my AP Chinese students if they would still like to host a small celebration. They agreed because they wanted to feel some happiness during this scary time.”

Editors’ Note:
As students move forward with their lives, this tragic event will always hit home to most. There truly is no written way to handle and deal with grief. As Josephine Kim said, “Grief is difficult to handle, and counseling may not work for all because everyone deals with trauma differently.” Unfortunately, not every student has a support system at home or outside of campus, leaving this situation in the hands district. Having counselors on campus is a start, but it’s not a perfect solution. As the city moves into a new lunar new year, events like the Cherry Blossom Festival and summer being right around the corner, the safety of its citizens and its students are being brought into question.