The Loma Prieta School District in Los Gatos is hiring outside facilitators to help it work through the controversy that started when a C.T. English Middle School teacher gave a student a failing quiz grade because she left class to attend last week’s National Student Walkout against gun violence.

The teacher who handed out the failing grade is David Kissner, who believes the school district “bent over backwards to promote and encourage” student participation in the walkout after the superintendent said the district would remain neutral on the issue.

Superintendent Corey Kidwell could not be reached for comment.

But when news of the failing grade broke, dozens of people took to social media to comment: Some posted support for Kissner, agreeing that the girl deserved the failing grade for cutting class, while others argued the girl’s actions and the walkout were justified.

The ensuing controversy resulted in the decision to hire outside facilitators.

Kissner, Kidwell and school board President Deanna Arnold issued a joint statement Monday night that said, “We are committed to showing how real dialog about emotionally-packed events can result in finding common ground from which we all get stronger and make better decisions. To that end, the district will seek outside facilitation to help us learn from these challenges and develop a set of shared understandings to guide us going forward.”

The controversy caught the attention of Campbell psychologist Stefanie Smith. She thinks Kissner’s actions were “retaliatory” and said he missed a “huge teaching lesson.”

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“We have a situation that’s creating fear in students, teachers and parents, and it’s also creating fear in those who are afraid of losing their guns,” she said. “In an ideal world, it would be nice to have everyone on the same page.”

But this is not an ideal world, so Smith thinks dialog is the next best step.

“I like the school district’s response–it’s proactive and not a knee-jerk reaction,” she said. “I hope they follow through because the kids are going to be watching that. We now have a generation of children that are being raised in a culture of school shootings.”

She called school shootings the new “normal.”

“We’re already at a point where this is normal, which I find shocking,” Smith said. “What’s happening is even if there’s a school lock down, for whatever reason, it’s traumatizing because they’re thinking it’s a school shooter.”

Smith said she’s seeing the impacts of the shootings in her practice, particularly among teachers.

Bay Area News Group reporter Joseph Geha contributed to this story.