MADISON, Wis. — When three students were killed in a house fire early Friday morning, the Watertown Unified School District implemented its school safety plan.
“When you have a tragedy like this in your community, it always takes time, and really what that means for us is to, you know, have some patience and a lot of kindness and offer the support that people need as we move forward through it, and then try to get back to as much normalization as we can for the students and the community,” Superintendent Jarred Burke said.
Officials have not yet publicly identified the victims or said what caused the fire. For now, it’s about supporting their community.
RELATED: Victims in Watertown house fire were students, superintendent confirms
“We just keep telling students and families to keep reaching out to us, you know, because this is a process, and we will help as good as we can with that, we also bring in some support services,” Burke said.
The school’s safety plan sped up the recovery process, immediately sending help to students and staff. But when more help was offered, they took it.
Neighboring school districts offered help, as did the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Office of School Safety, which offered grief counselors for students. Staff held virtual grieving sessions, and can call a support hotline. Burke encouraged families and loved ones looking for support to call the school district.
Superintendent Burke knows this community won’t heal overnight, but one way or another, it will heal.
“Students go through stages of grief, everybody’s individual is different, and so we know that this is going to be a process that may take months to make sure that we’re supporting everybody in need,” Burke says.
Saturday’s Watertown Winter Market raised money for the family and a GoFundMe page has also been set up to support them.
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