On September 4, 2024, I was emailing back and forth with a math teacher at a large high school I serve, trying to arrange a meeting with a vendor. After my last reply to her, the shooting at Apalachee High School occurred near her classroom. And nothing can ever be the same.
The Columbine shooting happened in my first year of teaching. I felt tricked; out of all the things teaching was to me it had nothing to do with students being killed at school. I even wrote post on my first blog in 2007 and predicted “…eventually, we will all be part of a school shooting.” But I was still shocked when I heard that there was a shooting at a school I was in just a few days prior.
The longest 90 minutes was the wait to hear back from the teacher I had been emailing. She was alive, her daughter was alive. Her story isn’t mine to tell.
I am so mad that teachers assume this will happen to them. I am so mad that from 1999, to 2007, to 2024 this keeps happening to schools, to teachers, to students, to families. I am so upset that people with a nurturing and scholarly disposition random may have to carry out their duties during an active shooting. And that we have to revert to Go Fund Me to remedy a predictable outcome.
Leave a Reply