Exclusive: Jason Seaman opens up after Noblesville shooting

Show Caption Hide Caption Exclusive interview with Jason Seaman, hero teacher in Noblesville school shooting Hear from Jason Seaman, the Noblesville West teacher who helped stop the school shooting in his classroom, in a one-on-one interview with IndyStar.

A boy in a Noblesville West Middle School T-shirt waited patiently Wednesday in the Napleton Hyundai of Carmel dealership, watching as teacher Jason Seaman was given a new Elantra.

Chanden Meisenholder was there to show appreciation, too. Chanden was in the classroom below Seaman's class last month when authorities say a student opened fire. Chanden heard the gunshots.

The 13-year-old had to crane his neck to look the 6-foot-4-inch science teacher in the eye, but he made a point to do so.

"If he didn't do what he did," Chanden said, "I might not be OK."

In the past 19 days, Seaman has received similar words and letters of appreciation from at least 20 states. But he didn't rush Chanden. The two talked quietly for a minute. Seaman thanked him back.

In an exclusive interview with IndyStar after the car giveaway, Seaman and his wife, Colette, discussed the outpouring of support they have received, the challenges of returning to a normal life and his feelings toward the parents of the boy accused of shooting him.

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Right now, the Seamans said they are focused on getting back to their usual routine, spending time with their 2-year-old son and 2-month-old daughter. At this point being normal takes effort because, so far, they have had to deal with a lot of not-normal days.

Take Monday, for example, when Seaman walked into a courtroom for the first time in his life to attend the hearing for the student accused of shooting him and 13-year-old Ella Whistler.

“There’s a part of curiosity and a part that I feel obligated to go just because I was a big factor in it,” he said. “It’s just part of the experience.”

It was a learning experience, he said. But he went because he thought it also might be healing.

Was it healing?

“We’ll just see how it plays out.”

And there was June 1, exactly one week after the shooting, when Seaman returned to his classroom. He waited until the last day of school, when he returned to wave students off into summer break. After everyone was gone, he walked upstairs to his seventh-grade science classroom.

“It didn’t bother me at all,” he said. “I went in there and looked around, just kind of is what it is. It’s still my room, you know. It’s just mine.”

Seaman, just like law enforcement officials, said he isn’t able to talk about what happened inside his classroom that day. When asked what he could say, he said: “It happened on Friday.”

Colette said that was a “really weird” day for her.

“I don’t know if it really still feels really real,” she said. “It was definitely a surreal day.”

What followed has been surreal for her, too. She jokes that she is married to a celebrity. He has been stopped in the grocery store a couple of times, though they have not had to go often because people have donated food. When they went to church on Sunday, she said everybody wanted to stop to talk to her husband.

She calls it an “out of body” experience.

“People just want to say thank you and be nice,” Seaman said. “I don’t like the attention. It’s not that I’m not receptive to it. I’d rather be the guy who just moves around and nobody notices. But it’s just people being nice, so I think I can be OK with that.”

Seaman said he has visited Whistler in the hospital every week since the shooting to offer moral support for her and her family.

“I’ve told them I’m on speed dial so if they want to give me a call I’ll be down there as fast as I can,” he said. “But she’s so incredible. She’s just powering through it, being awesome.”

He also is thinking about the boy accused of pulling the trigger, another one of his students. Seaman's mother, Kristi, recently told IndyStar she would give the boy’s parents a hug if she ever met them. Seaman said he echoes his mom’s kind sentiment.

“Whenever somebody is going through something you’ve got to feel for them, regardless,” he said. “We’re all people. We’re all in this together.”

Seaman, who has worked at the middle school for four years, applauded the school district for its handling of affairs since the shooting.

Administrators reached out to students, parents and staff to offer counseling services. Tuesday night they announced changes to increase security, including placing an officer in every school, increasing mental health services for students and no longer using portable classrooms.

Seaman said these efforts had been rolled out months ago to staff as part of Noblesville Schools’ four-year plan.

“Noblesville has … already been a safe district,” he said. “It was safe before. It will be safe now. It will be safe in the future. They’re just going to continue to evolve and get better like all districts should.”

Seaman acknowledged that some people may not be happy with how the district is handling safety. Still, “people just need to understand that the people on the board and the people in the administration are doing what’s best for the kids," he said. "And people just need to remember that."

Seaman, a former Southern Illinois University defensive lineman, said he has no fear about returning to Noblesville West Middle School. Colette doesn’t either.

“I think it was kind of a freak happening," she said. “I would like to think that this hopefully would never happen again. It still baffles me as to why it happened in the first place, but it did. So (we’ve) just got to be as positive as possible and move forward.”

He will be there to welcome students back in the fall, he said.

“Without a doubt.”

Call IndyStar reporter Emma Kate Fittes at (317) 513-7854. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.