School Honors Sandy Hook Shooting Victim With Wingman Program

On Friday, Dylan Hockley's parents went to the school and met with students.

Students at New Fairfield Middle School took a break from a typical day of math, science and social studies classes on Friday to teach each other life lessons instead. 

In September, the school was introduced to the Wingman program, which was created in memory of 6-year-old Dylan Hockley, who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in 2012. 

On Friday, Dylan’s parents and U.S. Senator Chris Murphy went to the school and heard from the students taking part in the program. 

Through Wingman, students play the teachers a few times each school year and teach fellow classmates about social and emotional skills. 

Dylan Hockley’s dad, Ian Hockley, said he hopes one lesson the students learn is the importance of looking out for one another. 

“So if I think of Dylan -- and he was the little boy with Autism who needed everybody to be his wingman -- and if everybody would do that, just be looking out for him, those moments maybe when he needed help, maybe to understand the rules of the game or maybe just to get involved with something then he got all the joys in life that any other kid would get,” Ian Hockley said.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy also met with students to discuss what is and isn’t working in the program and said he hopes to pass the information along to other U.S. Senators.

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