FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) They were baptized by gunfire their freshman year, bonded as they spent hours hiding under desks, inextricably linked by tragedy. For the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Class of 2021, high school would never be about Friday night football and innocent first kisses.

Seventeen students and staff were killed in the 2018 Valentines Day shooting. As the Parkland students struggled to define high school apart from tragedy, their senior year has been punctuated by the coronavirus pandemic, upending their lives once again.

The majority are isolated at home on a computer, their hard-fought normal routines altered and their support systems splintered.

The shooting catapulted some students into the spotlight as they rallied for gun control and landed on the cover of Time magazine. But that was just a sliver of the experience of those in this largely affluent, palm-tree studded suburb. In the shadows, many struggle at times to manage daily life.

Their only full year at Stoneman Douglas was as sophomores - a time tinged with triggers from fire alarms and fireworks. Many students felt retraumatized every time they walked by the now cordoned-off freshman building, the site of the shooting.