It’s Friday afternoon, and I do not have a class for the last period of the day. I decided to sneak out a bit early and to get a quick errand done before a virtual department meeting. I live 3 minutes away from school with excellent traffic. 6 or 7 minutes is the usual time with after school traffic. Anyway, I log on to the meeting and find out that about 15 minutes after I left, two boys were shot outside the school during dismissal. I teach in a brand new school in the location of the old building, so there is a lot of demolition going on. Evidently it happened near one of the demolition fences. According to news reports, the boys were shot by two or three other boys who then fled. Currently they are not in custody, but police are investigating and they hope to have someone in custody soon. The mayor was also present for the dismissal and witnessed the shooting.
One boy was shot in the leg, the other in the arm, and were brought into the school to await paramedics. One was placed in the dance studio, where the teacher is a first year teacher who graduated from the city’s other high school.
Both boys are in stable condition at local hospitals.
As I said in the title, this is the first time such a shooting has come this close to me. I’m in shock right now, and I wasn’t even there.
My family contacted me as soon as they heard. One of my brothers, after reading an article about it, thought that it might have been targeted and gang related.
I really have no more words...I might have taught one of these kids on either side of this.
UPDATE: I’m feeling quite a bit of guilt right now because I snuck out early for some purely selfish reasons. I will be taking advantage of our district’s employee assistance program where I can talk with a licensed therapist about this. I will also be directing my students on Monday to seek their counsellors to arrange appointments with the district’s LCSWs so they can also get the help they need. I will also make myself available to them to listen to what they need to say.