A year after deadly Nashville shooting, Christian school relies on faith — and adopted dogs

[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnNASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nearly a year after a shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville that left three adults and three children dead, the students and their families have formed tight bonds out of their shared suffering. They’ve also adopted a lot of dogs.Among the adopters is Matthew Sullivan, who now cares for a Rhodesian ridgeback named Hank. He is the chaplain at Covenant School, which endured an all-too-common tragedy on March 27, 2023, when a former student shot through the exterior doors and kept going. Sullivan isn’t allowed to talk about what happened inside the building that day, but he says it, and the days that followed, are a blur anyway.
Some things stand out though. He remembers walking to safety with the students in a human chain and one of them asking, “Where’s Evelyn?” He remembers the eerie feeling he got when he realized that Head of School Katherine Koonce was not responding on the text thread among the teachers. He remembers the endless waiting at a nearby church as students were slowly reconnected with parents. No one had a comprehensive list of students; it took hours to make sure everyone was accounted for and with their proper guardians.
It wasn’t until much later that evening that Sullivan learned which of his pupils and colleagues he would never see again: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9 years old; Koonce …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]