One of the six adults killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a first-grade teacher who made sure her students were safe before getting shot, reports the Hartford Courant.

Victoria Soto, who turned 27 this month, taught next door to the room where the heaviest shooting broke out. She gathered her students and hid them, possibly in a bathroom or a classroom closet. The gunman then entered her room looking for more people to kill, a source tells the newspaper. “But seeing no one but Soto, he shot her, then left the room.”

“It doesnt surprise me at all she would do this,” Sabeena Ali, the parent of a girl who was in Sotos class two years ago.