A tragic Monday presents a challenge for new school superintendent — and for all of us
I have not met Robert Taylor, the new Wake County Superintendent, but you’ve got to be impressed with the first eight weeks.
Seems like a caring guy. First impressions matter, and he’s been busy.
He’s gone from classroom to classroom, greeting teachers and students. He sat down often with local media, including The News & Observer, to talk about his experiences — 30-plus years as a North Carolina educator — and his aspirations for the Wake County school system.
The superintendent revealed his 100-day plan with this key point, according to coverage from The N&O’s T. Keung Hui:
▪ Connect with the community through forums that will include teachers, administrators and community members. Taylor said he wants to hear firsthand what people say Wake is doing well and where the school system needs to improve.
“The reassurance that I want to give everybody in this community is my job is not to come in and begin knocking walls down,” Taylor said in an interview with The News & Observer.
A bad Monday
Readers who still work — regardless if you’re a barista, public employee or local editor — lean into Mondays hoping the new week starts more like a stroll through the neighborhood than a rush-hour race onto Interstate 40 (especially merging from 1, 440 or 540).
A cup of coffee, perhaps, quick chatter and laughter with colleagues about the weekend, and then shifting smoothly into the jobs to be done. That’s a good Monday.
But when you’re superintendent, a bad Monday becomes everyone’s problem.
At 11 a.m. Monday, the start of Week Nine for the superintendent, 911 dispatchers got two calls from Southeast Raleigh High School.
A 15-year-old dead, a 14-year-old charged.
None of this was in Superintendent Taylor’s 100-day plan.
The first call came from a student hiding in a bathroom The following passages from The N&O’s coverage are chilling:
“They talking about stabbing people and guns,” the student says in the call. “Can you please come to the school? Please?”
“I’m a student, I’m scared,” the student later tells the dispatcher. The student can also be heard on the call asking other students what happened.
A devastating moment
Pause for a moment and visualize students crouched on a cold bathroom floor, fear colliding with panic, scared that they will die.
It’s a devastating moment that many of us can’t comprehend.
Many regular readers of this column went to school decades ago with little concern that lives could end in a classroom. Perhaps one of our friends — or one of us — got expelled for shoving someone into the lockers. But we didn’t go through regular drills on how to hide under desks in case there’s a killer in the building.
The N&O’s coverage has tried to answer your questions about what happened at Southeast Raleigh High, a magnet school that draws from neighborhood students and those interested in its design, arts and engineering offerings.
The school has had its share of challenges with controlled substances and weapons possessions. But so have other Wake County schools.
“We are seeing the early warning signs of an uptick in juvenile crime, which we have not seen in North Carolina in a long time,” William Lassiter, deputy secretary for the state Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, told The N&O for a report on how gun violence is a growing cause of death for North Carolina children.
Raleigh Police have not reported finding guns during their investigation of Monday’s stabbing. The weapon, a knife, led to the death of Delvin Ferrell, age 15. A 14-year-old student has been charged with murder.
Two families, a school, a neighborhood , you and me — all affected, no matter the weapon.
How the new superintendent and the district react will be superseded only by how our community responds.
Because this bad, sad Monday shouldn’t be in anyone’s plans.
Bill Church is executive editor of The News & Observer.
