Not the exact staircase but the colour of the building on the book and windows match columbine high school. Out of all the school names she could of chosen its a hella of a coincidence, she claimed its because her daughter went to olde columbine hs in colorado.
The plot sorta thickens theres movie from 10 years prior to this book called final exam and at 16 mins in theres a “school shooting”
You dont see scenes like this in films these days based at schools. Heathers movie is another interesting one with the villain killing fellow students and wearing a trenchcoat before he blows himself up outside the school hall
Close minor connection: the author was auline bates and eric harris columbine shooter called one of his guns arlene.
I wish i could find these book mark/screenshots i found about 1 year ago where this guy in colorado had emails before columbine from one of the shooters telling him columbine was going to get shot up around 1997