On Saturday night, I went to bed texting my team about one of our students who was involved in a shooting. Sunday morning, I woke up to this text.
“ Latest update from mom after first surgery: They said it looks like she got hit 8 times (in both legs). She’s in surgery now. Her hip bone is crushed. In her right leg, all top bones are broken. In her left leg, knee bone is broken and her butt bone was hit. She’s going to survive, but she will be out for a while because she won’t be able to walk. She will know more about the chances of full recovery after the surgery. If any one wants to come visit, she said she will have an update tomorrow. And thanks for the concerns. I will be there first thing in the morning.”
I was texted about this incident by one of my culture team members immediately after the shooting. There was a group of children involved, and we were sorting out which was ours. I then started to text my exec team (which includes campus principals) to alert them as we confirmed the identity of at least one of the students. My heart warmed in admiration of the dedication and engagement of my team faithful culture team member en route to the hospital to confirm specific details, support the family and follow up with information.
My principal for that campus responded:
“TM, I spoke to Safety and Security earlier. There was a shooting but none of our children were hurt.”
We continued our dialogue in group chat as I made it clear that this situation had just occurred. Once we sorted out the details, she connected with her team and took the reigns through the night. When I received this message the following morning, initially, I was relieved. I thought to myself she’s okay and shared that communication with my team. Sadly given our location, shootings and killings are a part of the work, and my brain was just processing that the student was still alive vs. dead.
But as I sat with my thinking, I screamed inside:
“SHE IS NOT OKAY! THIS IS NOT OKAY!”
A teen girl’s body is not meant to be riddled with bullets, and no matter what the status is of her survival and recovery, she will have significant mental and emotional trauma to overcome. I sat thinking about the statistics predicting the increased likelihood of death when a student survives a shooting. I pondered the risk of her falling into a state of depression or possibly newfound determination. There were other children with her who I was told did not survive. My heart went to her mom, understanding the plight of black womanhood is having grace under fire. When everything and everyone is falling apart, we find the strength to stand. Good or bad, fair or unfair, it’s our painful legacy. As I sought to connect with her spiritually, I was triggered.
…
In Dec of 2014, one of my students, DeMario Bailey, was killed, and it’s not that he was the first child had to bury as a leader. I regularly received emails from safety and security listing the students who were shot and had developed a routine/strategy for managing the school’s recovery as well as connecting with my families to determine the prognosis and his/her transition back to school. In retrospect, I was almost numb to it, understanding that the speed of the leader = the speed of the team. The children and the adults under my charge were taking signals from me as their leader. If I fell apart, they would fall apart. I come from a similar reality, and my students getting a solid education was the only way they would gain an options and the advantage that will make their future better. I forced myself to be focused and unemotional on the exterior as much as I could.
But there was something about that day in December. I will never forget it because it happened on my son’s birthday. There I was driving us home, having taken that Saturday off to throw him a birthday party. Nothing prepared me from the terror of answering that call on bluetooth. One of my staff members screaming sent the entire car into shock as she yelled to the top of her lungs, “Dr. T!!!! Dr. T!!!! They shot him!!!!” I listened and did my best to remain calm and explained that I would be drop my children off at home and then head straight to school. In less than five minutes, I got the next call that he was gone. I went straight to work and ubered my children home. I walked into a gym full of broken boys, his brother’s teammates and their coaches—in silence and tears.
As much as I know it is unreasonable in my natural mind, I took responsibility. While I was communicating with my team, planning to gather my children whose hearts would be reeling once this news broke, I was retracing our protocols in my mind. How did this happen? Where was the breach? Since founding Johnson College Prep, I developed systems and devoted resources to keeping my children safe—no excuses. I considered it a part of my job. My parents were trusting me/us with their most prized possessions, their babies. I’m a mother before most things, and I don’t want to hear an explanation for my child being hurt. We knew where we were and we needed to plan for it. Something went terribly wrong that day, starting with the warm day in December which we Chicagoans know is a signal for disaster…or heightened violence and body counts. Why was my kid under that viaduct alone and unprotected?!
After all was said and done, I decided this would be my last year as principal. I needed to take a step back. I couldn’t take the weight of it anymore. The job was too heavy, and all of the sudden I was realizing the weight of it all. Since I accepted the role, I put my head down and got the work done…many times alone, many times with unwavering expectations for results—despite dealing with challenges no one else was facing in every aspect of the work. The wear and tear on my soul seemed to come crashing down all at once, and I felt my feet slipping into these cement blocks. I couldn’t bounce back the way I normally did, and I decided that once I dug myself out of this hole of depression, I didn’t have the emotional capital to go back again. I didn’t sign up to sit in cars with broken mothers and not have answers for a pain I couldn’t begin to ease. “What do I do, Dr. T?” Sitting in her car, holding her hand, I searched for an answer “I have to do something. I can’t just let my son die.” I wanted to give her baby back so bad, and I couldn’t. I wanted answer to her question.
I didn’t want to plan anymore memorials, and I didn’t want to carry the burden of what I felt was my failure. Walking into our gym full of weeping children gathered to mourn the loss of their friend. Gathered to deal with the unfair hand life had dealt them once again. I stood before my babies and their strong momma principal broke down in despair and in anger, I looked up at them “I don’t know why everyone thinks that I know what to say. I don’t know what to say…” Before I could lift myself up, my children were rushing toward me hugging and holding me. “Don’t cry, Dr. T!”
We got through it together, but my mind was made up about taking a step back and finding another way to make this impact. I was in too deep, and whatever impenetrable bubble was shielding me from the fiery darts for all of my years as a founding principal in Englewood had lifted. It was time for a change. That change became a move to the c-suite and leading education management organizations, but somehow, I find myself back in the same place. It’s not better. Our children are still not free to be children.
What gets me most is that while parts of our city live in a perpetual state of crisis, many of us have the luxury of being unaware, unbothered, and unaffected. There are leaders and teachers being traumatized on a daily basis, and it’s just part of the job…
As I sat at the conference table this morning checking in with my assistant, the gravity of what happened and what is continuing to happen to our children, hit me once again. I told her about my reflections over the weekend as I connected my feelings to that of other courageous people who had to continue their movements amidst challenges and losses that had to seem insurmountable (i.e. the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., John F Kennedy). Certainly, they must have been broken and felt the defeat that I know I share with the many educators alongside me. Yet, they found the strength to continue forward with discipline and resolve.
I wrote this blog to cry out—literally and figuratively. I needed to scream for this baby, for her mother, and for everyone who is living in and working through these circumstances. IT IS NOT OKAY!!! Our children deserve to live just like all of the other ones in our great country. I don’t know why the killing of black children is being normalized and overlooked, but I can’t and won’t be quiet. I will always lift up these stories to humanize my children and all of the people doing a job that is not covered in textbooks and graduate programs. I need to validate these lives, the blood, the mothers, the teachers, the school teams, etc.
You are the real MVPs.
Even as I ride downtown to this meeting and hear Tupac’s Keep yo’ head up playing in my uber, I am strengthened by the memory and the legacy of everyone who has ever fought for anything that mattered. Education is how I/we fight. While tragic, this weekend was a reminder of why this work is so serious. It is a reminder of why we must educate with vigilance and demand the very best from and for our students. It is a matter of life and death. Let’s stay the course. They are counting on you to show up.
Keeping it real, true, and free,
Garland Darling