News of Newtown, Conn. shooting leaves local teacher heartbroken

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Local educators took Friday’s tragic Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting especially hard.

Deborah Guy is a kindergarten teacher at Dodge Elementary. She said she stayed off the Internet the entire day.

She said she wanted to keep her emotions in check for her students but she still heard about what happened in a school just like hers more than 1,000 miles away.

"They are innocent little children. They are eager to learn. They want to do everything the right way and please everyone,” said Guy.

Guy spent Friday teaching the young minds in her kindergarten class at Dodge Elementary.

"This is their safe place," said Guy.

In a classroom just like hers, another teacher was facing an educator’s worst nightmare.

"You don't know what to say," said Guy.

The majority of the shooting happened in a kindergarten classroom.

"If you are forewarned and know a head of time there may be some kind of danger, we have procedures. But if they had no forewarning, I don’t know what they could have done,” said Guy.

Those safety procedures seem even more important now according Principal Dr. Suzanne Crist.

"You never know when there will be an emergency,” said Crist.

Crist said they practice lock down drills often.

"Every month as well as once a semester,” said Crist.

Information about the shooting was on lock down Friday because teachers did not want the students to hear the details.

"As an elementary child, I think that should come from parents; and that discussion should be from them," said Crist.

There is now the realization that this can happen anywhere; and as their student’s protectors, these educators are looking to ways of preventing tragedy from happening at their school.

"It’s just a sadness. You want school to be a safe environment for children,” said Crist.