Mark Wilson/Getty Images(PARKLAND, Fla.) — Two parents whose teenage daughters were gunned down in the Parkland, Florida, high school massacre are running for seats on Broward County’s school board, they announced this morning.
Lori Alhadeff and Ryan Petty’s daughters, Alyssa Alhadeff and Alaina Petty, both 14 years old, were among the 17 students and staff killed in the Valentine’s Day mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“My world completely changed” on Valentine’s Day, Petty said today, and now he wants to “represent parents all over the district who deserve to have their children come home to them every afternoon.”
Alhadeff added that she doesn’t want “any other parent to go through the pain and anguish I go through every day,” and thinks a position on the school board is the best way she can help implement stronger school safety measures.
“I want to do everything possible to make this school system a model that other districts will look and try to replicate,” Alhadeff said.
Besides school safety, Petty said he wants to see more transparency and accountability, citing what he called the “confusing matrix of discipline programs” that allow students like suspected school shooter Nikolas Cruz — who had a slew of disciplinary problems during his time in Broward County schools — to fall through the cracks.
Alhadeff said discipline programs in the district have “gone from the complete extremes — from over-disciplining kids to not disciplining kids, which we have now.” She said discipline policies must be “revamped” and to “meet somewhere in the middle.”
“There is no better way to ensure that the change this school system desperately needs is achieved than to have a seat at the table,” said Alhadeff.
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