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\"We create a school climate where everybody matters,\" said Angela Bernholz, a school psychologist at Old Mill High School who created an elective class that helps at-risk students build relationships with peers.

\"These are kids who were not connected, but became connected — but it took us doing something,\" Bernholz said. \"When we intervene successfully, we don’t know what might have happened.\"

Three of the four cabinet secretaries who make up the school safety commission — Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Homeland Security Sec. Kristen Nielsen, and Health & Human Services Sec. Alex Azar — sent surrogates to the meeting.

Beth Williams, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy, represented the Justice Department; Elinore McCance-Katz, Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, represented the Department of Health and Human Services; and Christopher Krebs, the nominee for the Undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate, represented the Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Education declined to comment on the secretaries' absences. Other departments did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

Earlier this month, Sessions, Nielsen and Azar all opted out of another planned meeting due to \"unforeseen scheduling conflicts\" and DeVos met with stakeholders, including officials who have dealt with the fallout from the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, as well as parents of victims from Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland, alone.

The full commission has not met as a group since March, when all four secretaries gathered to discuss logistics, staffing, timeline, and scope, according to an Education Department readout.

Yet DeVos has said she is hopeful the commissions will issue findings by \"year's end,\" with an interim report \"hopefully\" coming out before then.

On Thursday, she pledged further discussion with states, school districts, and school administrators.

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