For weeks afterward, Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis remained in shock.

The first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., survived a massacre by a gun-wielding madman by locking herself and 15 students in a tiny bathroom during a mass shooting that left 26 students and teachers dead in December 2012.

Her life had been spared. Her sense of control had not.

Roig-DeBellis said she didn't want to be in the dark. She was afraid to be in public and afraid to be alone.

"It was horrible, because up until that day I was an extremely independent person," Roig-DeBellis, now 30, said in a phone interview Friday.

But by the time classes resumed in January 2013, Roig-DeBellis had made up her mind: She was not going to let the tragedy define her or her students.

"It happened to us, but it was not going to define our lives moving forward, because then truly all would be lost," she said.

Since that day, Roig-DeBellis has focused on spreading a positive message to her students and the country's youth. Roig-DeBellis, who was named one of Glamour magazine's women of the year in 2013, is slated to address Luzerne County Community College's graduating class at the college's 46th annual commencement at 6 p.m. May 22 at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.

Her message: "It's like mice and men - the best laid plans often falter," she said.

A teacher's duty

When she graduated from the University of Connecticut with a master's degree in education in 2006, she never imagined she would be anywhere but in a classroom teaching first-graders, she said.

That plan changed about 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2012, as Roig-DeBellis was sitting with her students in their morning meeting, a ritual in which they sit in a circle and greet each other, talking about what they're doing that day.

The morning quiet was shattered by the crack of rapid-fire gunshots bursting from around a corner just feet from the classroom, Roig-DeBellis said.

"I knew immediately what it was. There was not a question in my mind," she said. "So I got up, closed the door, turned the lights off. My keys were clear across the classroom on my desk. There was not time to get them, so I knew the door would remain unlocked, and the only option for us was to hide."

The only place they could hide was a bathroom in the back of the classroom - a room about 3 feet by 4 feet that was so small Roig-DeBellis said she had never been inside.

She crammed her 15 students inside and locked herself in with them, waiting and listening.

"As you can imagine it was extremely terrifying - the most awful thing you can imagine," Roig-DeBellis said.

Mostly the children were quiet, knowing terrible danger was, perhaps, just a cough or sob away. But there was a little talking, she said.

"There was some consoling, telling them it was going to be OK, telling them how grateful I was to be their teacher, telling them how much I loved them," Roig-DeBellis said. "I didn't ever think we were going to make it out of that bathroom."

About 45 minutes later, someone knocked on the door. A student asked who it was, and the person said it was the police.

Roig-DeBellis said she asked for identification and the person slid a badge under the door.

"I held it, and it didn't look real," she said. "I said, 'I can't unlock the door for you. That does not look like a real badge. If you're really the police, you would have a way to get the keys.'"

The police did and opened the door to reveal a SWAT team in the classroom, she said.

By that point the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, had fired off 154 shots with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, murdering 20 first-graders and six educators. He ended the rampage by killing himself with a shot from a Glock handgun.

Roig-DeBellis has been called a hero for saving the lives of her students, but she demurs.

"Hero is not a word that I associate with at all, and I'm very quick to correct anyone who calls me that. I'm a teacher who has always loved children, who has always loved working with children and ensuring their success," Roig-DeBellis said. "I did what any teacher would do."

Paying it forward

The next few weeks were hard. But when classes resumed in January 2013, Roig-DeBellis was determined not to raise a class of victims.

"I needed to find a way to ensure that my students and I got our control back," she said. "Our control was completely taken from us on that day in many ways, and I was determined that in moving forward, we would get our control back."

Teachers and students found themselves getting care packages from all over the world, an "incredible and uplifting" experience, she said.

One morning a box of toys for recess was waiting for the class, and Roig-DeBellis seized on a teachable moment. The lesson: When someone does something nice, it's one's responsibility to pay it forward.

"That truly is the way our world is meant to work," she said. "I truly believe that giving always makes us feel better."

Although most children in her class were only 6, they all wanted to help out, she said.

"They were more excited that I had told them we were going to help someone else - I mean, they forgot about the recess toys I had just showed them," Roig-DeBellis said. "It was just this real moment of clarity of, what if every child, every student, could experience this?"

She said she went home that night and started doing research and writing up her ideas. Thus Classes 4 Classes Inc. was born.

The nonprofit teaches children to care for others by paying it forward and helping students across the country.

It begins with a teacher from kindergarten through eighth grade signing up on the website and selecting another class to sponsor, she said.

The projects are funded by donors, so there is no cost to the students, teachers or schools, she said. But the receiving class doesn't get a gift without its own promise.

"Before that classroom can receive that money for whatever it is - iPad, a computer, books - they have to go onto our site and post their own project for another class, so that the pay-it-forward continues on and on and on," she said.

Running the nonprofit takes a lot of time, so after teaching summer school last year Roig-DeBellis took a sabbatical from Sandy Hook. Since then, she has been booking guest speaking events across the country and Canada, she said.

She likes to talk about people's perspectives, overcoming adversity and the resiliency of the human spirit.

"Even in the hardest times in your life, you can always choose to focus on the good as opposed to really letting the bad weigh you down," Roig-DeBellis said. "No matter what happens to you, no matter what you go through, it is your perspective and it is your choice how you react to it. You're the one who holds that power, and to always remember that."

jhalpin@citizensvoice.com