Montalto said he is hopeful the tour will offer the lawmakers perspective and communicate the sense of urgency they feel to improve school safety.

“The more people we have trying to solve the issues, the more things we will put in place to protect our students and teachers,” he said. “There is not one thing that will make the change -- it is changing this and that -- it is working together across the aisle to find the answers that neither side has on their own.”

For Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex was murdered in his classroom, school safety is not a partisan issue, it is a pressing one.

“I hope that good common sense school safety legislation will come out of this,” he said.

Following the congressional tour will be a video and audio recorded reenactment of the school shooting, which is part of a civil case.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers have said it will parallel the shooter’s movements inside in relation to ex-Parkland Deputy Scot Peterson, who was outside during the entirety of the shooting.

“There will be 140 live rounds of AR-15 223 ammunition fired off into a bullet trap -- the fire alarm will go off simulating what happened on the third floor,” Schachter said. “We hope this will prove that there is no way he didn’t hear the sounds of an AR-15 firing armor-piercing bullets.”

“It will be extremely difficult to have the reenactment take place, but we know it is necessary,” Montalto said. “Peterson was acquitted of the criminal charges at the time, but that does not mean he is not guilty of failing to act.”

Few have been inside the three-story building since the Valentine’s Day 2018 shooting. The structure looms over the campus, locked behind a chain-link fence for use as evidence in last year’s penalty trial for the shooter.

There is broken glass on the floor, along with wilted roses, deflated balloons and discarded gifts. Opened textbooks and laptop computers remain on students’ desks — at least those that weren’t toppled during the chaos.