One Year After Covenant Shooting, Students Still Suffering as Parents Push for Change

While memories of the Covenant School shooting continue to linger across Nashville one year later, one group of parents is turning their grief into a tangible action plan to keep schools and students safe.

Bodycam video from that March 27 shooting in 2023 shows Nashville police entering the Christian school, racing toward the gunfire to confront and take down the shooter later identified as Audrey Hale. 

In the end, the shooting left three Covenant students and three staff members dead. 

Mary Joyce and Melissa Anderson whose children attend the school recall that tragic day.

"The feeling of complete helplessness on that day and trying to do anything to get to my child," Joyce told CBN News.

"They could hear all of the gunshots and the children, some of them, one grabbed the Bible and started praying," said Anderson. "And so in their minds, as they waited in that moment, hearing what was going on around them, they were preparing to be next."

The mothers say their kids are still feeling the trauma a year later.

"My 9-year-old now, she just turned 10 a couple weeks ago, doesn't sleep in her own bed yet," said Joyce. "She still has nightmares. She is angry during the day over little things, and that's not our child. I don't know how to parent that." 

"She has also lost 50 percent of her hearing in her left side," added Joyce. "We just had her retested and it's declining a little bit more."

Anderson said her son, who was a 4th grader at the time of the shooting, refuses to open up about what happened at his school.

"That is heartbreaking in itself because I don't want what he experienced on that second floor to be locked up inside of him," she explained. "I saw my child who was nine years old at the time, become like a 20-year-old trapped in a child's body. And so, I think that he lost a piece of childhood that we can never get back."

Brent Leatherwood has three children who attend the school. 

"I still can't believe it's happened," Leatherwood said in an interview with CBN News. "We were very, very fearful that we had lost a child, that we now know that that evil, that day came very, very close to two of our children. And that's hard to live with."

It is a tragic bond these parents all share.

"The grief comes in waves," said Anderson. "That grief really came over me in a wave a few weeks ago when I was sitting down with another mother in her home, and we were talking about what had happened. Our children were together that day, and just the emotions that I hadn't seen, because I try to hold those back when I'm in public. Those emotions came over me and I was just angry that I have to live this life. I'm angry for our community."

That anger is now the driving force behind the movement called Covenant Families for Brighter Tomorrows – a push for gun law changes and safe schools statewide. 

Last August, Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee called a special session to address the issue. 

"We say, 'Look, we are conservative Christian families who I myself am a gun owner,'" said Anderson. "Our families are gun owners, but we own guns, yet we want safer gun laws. Those two can coexist and we believe what we're asking is in line with the Second Amendment.'" 

No meaningful legislation passed in the special session which was a disappointment to State Rep. Rebecca Alexander. She recently championed a bill that blocks the release of autopsy reports of murdered children – a measure also supported by Covenant parents. She described to CBN News what it was like to read testimony of those whose children were lost in the shooting.

"I went down and talked to them and just hugged them and cried with them," said Alexander. "I'm a mom myself and could only imagine their grief and to hear their words being spoken just took our breath away."

Joyce admits failure to see change in her state's gun laws is difficult.

"It's frustrating at best because we do feel like there's a lot of production and agreement on issues, but then we see their actions and it's so frustrating and it's hard to wrap our heads around, well, 'We came up with a solution. So why are we not putting it into action,"' said Joyce.

With nearly 350 U.S. school shootings in 2023, Joyce argues that inaction sends mixed messages to kids.

"'Children, we are going to send you to school to learn and learn about our country, but wait, you might die today.  And this classroom that you're learning in and your desk might be blown to shreds, and you might be in a war zone and some of your friends might die and you may die,'" Joyce said.

Leatherwood, former executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party and Southern Baptist Convention Leader, says the shooting has deepened his faith.

"I don't want to say I'm in the same shoes as Job, but I think I'm asking some of those same questions that Job was," Leatherwood said. "And I think that's okay because I think our God is big enough to handle our questions."

Leatherwood is also calling for urgent action.

"We're here in the capitol building, a place that I hold dear," said Leatherwood. "I worked here for several years. This is a place where I personally helped as a staff member usher through significant pro-life legislation. I think if we want to be consistent with that pro-life ethic. The same energy and earnest action that we do on behalf of that vulnerable child in the womb, we need to also do for that vulnerable child in the classroom."

While Covenant students have been attending classes off campus, officials plan to reopen the building soon. 
 
And as Easter approaches, many are holding on to the hope of the Gospel.

"I ultimately pray for healing," said Anderson. "I hope that we show witness to other communities that there is healing and there is also purpose in the pain. And a beautiful thing can come out of what happened in such a horrible, tragic situation."