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Many years ago, when I was a teacher at a nearby high school, we lost four students over the course of a school year to untimely and tragic deaths. The last one, the victim of a car accident, died the Friday before prom. He had just picked up his rented tuxedo.
Students in any given high school show up on the first day, get their schedules, have their pictures taken. They go to their classes, do homework, make new friends, drift away from old ones. They feel overwhelmed some days…then surprise themselves on other days with their resilience. They pass the milestones of a school year and never have to confront the death of a classmate. This is typical.
Years in which a student dies distinguish themselves. It changes everything. Staff, students, and families are forced to ask existential questions we work hard as humans to avoid. The answers to these kinds of questions, at best, can empower us in our humanity. Often, a community comes together and reveals the best of itself. The weight of grief, however, renders long and arduous this process, and the road to these kinds of answers.
So it is, also, with events like those that took place in Georgia last week. As with Uvalde, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, Sandy Hook, and so many others, we stop and grieve. We ask questions. We get angry. In some cases, we are inspired to action. In others, we can hardly bear to acknowledge the news. In a message to staff last Thursday, I wrote the following:
The news from Georgia yesterday reminds those of us who have been at this for a while of the ongoing (and frustratingly unnecessary) low-level dread which accompanies working at an American school in this era of mass shootings. That's the best word I can think of to describe my feelings, anyway: dread. I’ve had many conversations with colleagues over the years trying to help process this dread…It's important that you know you are not alone in these feelings of anger, hopelessness, sadness, and fear. Likewise, know that you are recognized for showing up every day and doing inspiring work with students despite all this horrible noise in the background of our lives.
Every member of our community should bear the following in mind:
- We have a comprehensive coordinated plan in place with partner agencies in the statistically unlikely event that we were to find ourselves under attack.
- California and San Mateo County are substantially more progressive than places like Georgia or Texas when it comes not only to gun regulation but also law enforcement's latitude to conduct peremptory searches as part of regular threat assessment protocols.
- Our emergency procedures are designed to make everyone's job as manageable as possible in the event of an intruder-based lockdown. We review them regularly as a staff.
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Our preventative measures and protocols for identifying/assessing threats are robust, including the recent adoption of the See Something, Say Something platform through the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation. We work closely with law enforcement and country wellness staff to conduct threat assessments thoroughly.
Re: the last item, I’m grateful to how responsive and engaged our students have been in looking out for one another. Grateful to the students and grateful to our families. We train all students on the use of the threat reporting platform (which also serves as an anonymous channel to report bullying, mental health struggles, and other wellness concerns) in class during the very first week of school. Sequoia students approach the topic with maturity – a good sign of what kinds of values are promoted at home.
I’m also a parent. I hope my own children make it through their (fast approaching) high school years without having to mourn a classmate and go down the road of existential uncertainty. Life, as most of us know by adulthood, will provide plenty of opportunities to ask those kinds of questions.
Have a great week. Give your kids an extra hug. They deserve it.
Best,
Sean
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