“Death cannot be experienced either by the dead or the living.”
― William T. Vollmann, Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means

Wednesday morning I was working at home, at my desk. It’d been a shit morning.

I have a washer that is leaking water and a car leaking oil. If you have teenagers, you know that there are two things a household can’t do without—washing machines and cars.

How was I going to pay for these needed repairs? Damn, I thought, how come nothing is easy. I’d worked myself into a pretty foul mood.

Then a text came from my daughter, a sophomore at a local high school.

there was a shooting at Antioch.

HS?

Yea.

Shocked, I stared at the screen. trying to process. Thoughts of my own issues quickly put in perspective.

Neither of my kids attends Antioch, but it’s less than 10 miles from the house.

Kids from their middle school go there though. My son works out every Sunday with the football team’s offensive coordinator, his sons, and several football players there. I know teachers who have taught there for decades. Hell, it is the alma mater of Jelly Roll.

The thoughts moved through my brain like molasses over a pancake, slowly engulfing everything. Quickly texts were sent, checking on the safety of friends.

Word quickly spread that 2 were dead, including the shooter. News of the safety of those we knew came in slower. Sadness and rage ran neck and neck fear and anxiety.

Initially, it was my supposition that this was a fight between students that erupted in gunfire. By evening, it was made clear that this was in fact yet another school shooting perpetrated by a student that wished harm to their peers and to end their life.

The gunman in question broadcast his intentions both the day before and that morning from the school bathroom. He went as far as live-streaming from the bathroom, showing the weapon he intended to use. Unlike the Covenant shooter, the Antioch gunmen’s manifest is readily available, both chilling and heartbreaking.

The funny thing about social media is it’s got a million users but if you ain’t got the right algorithm or are a direct follower, few would have seen the messages in real time.

In the wake of the shooting, speculation immediately started.

How did this happen?

Why was nobody able to catch this before it happened?

Surely it was preventable.

I don’t have any answers and I’m trying to refrain from speculation until more information arrives.

That said, I will say, It is my opinion, that Metro Nashville Public Schools and district superintendent Dr. Adrienne Battle need to pick up their game. Their response has not been great, or even very good. Per usual, their response has been one that puts the brand above the students, families, and teachers.

Multiple reports cite a scene where little information was given to parents and little empathy was given for their concerns. Students were transported to various locations, including home, with parents not being made aware of where they were they were being transported.

MNPS put out a statement that students would be transported to a reunification site off campus where parents could meet up with them. That plan was deviated, and some students were bused home while parents were waiting at the reunification site, unaware that their child was on the way home. Little empathy was given to parents who were faced with confronting their worst nightmare.

Late in the day, Dr, Battle released her statement. It included the following opening paragraphs:

“This is a heartbreaking day for the entire Antioch High School community and all of us in Nashville Public Schools. My heart goes out to the families of our students as they face unimaginable loss. I want to thank the school staff who quickly and heroically followed emergency protocols, potentially preventing further harm, as well as the Metro Nashville Police Department and Nashville Fire Department for their swift and urgent response.

“While we have been focused on addressing the immediate situation, we are committed to understanding how and why this happened and what more we can do to prevent such tragedies in the future. It’s important to remember that our schools have historically been safe places for learning, friendship, and growth. We cannot allow this tragedy to overshadow the positive experiences of our 80,000 students.

A little less thanking people and a little more embracing people would have gone a long way.

I would argue that schools of late have not been safe places. Violence happens all too frequently. An instance of this magnitude demands a rigorously honest evaluation of what went wrong. Because no matter how much you think you did right, there are two children with a different opinion.

Delivering accolades and talking about positive experiences while my child was headed to the morgue would have earned you a giant, “fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

We are not talking about a “negative experience” in this instance, we are talking about two dead students, and their experience trumps that of the positive experiences of less than 80K kids… every time.

Not a single Antioch teacher took to social media and posted about the great job that day and how proud they were of their team’s actions. They were too busy expressing, shock, fear, and confusion. Maybe district leadership should try and emulate those people they purport to support.

A 16-year-old girl left for school Wednesday morning, not realizing that she wouldn’t be coming home. Meanwhile, a young man left for school having already made the decision that he wouldn’t be coming home.

Let that sink in while you consider all the positive experiences of students in the district.

We all failed those kids, and I don’t know the solution, but it begins with acknowledging that we failed those kids.

Both of them.

That failure makes a mockery of MNPS’s favorite tagline – Every Student Known. Clearly, we don’t.

Antioch HS has been closed for the week. The rest of the district has remained open, though they should have been closed as well.

Social media has exploded with talks of threats to other district schools. Most have been discounted as hoaxes, but as my kids say, “How do you know that?” Monday morning, we might have thought Wednesday’s threats were a hoax.

Still, the district acts as if this is just a crisis to be managed, one that doesn’t involve dead children.

One principal, who I have the utmost respect for, wrote in an email to parents, “Your child is safe at…”

How can you say that? Did Antioch HS administrators not believe that to be true before Wednesday? There is no way that you can make that promise.

Further down they wrote, “Our exterior doors are locked, our SRO is at his post, and our drills/procedures are up to date. Each of our team members is committed to caring for your child as if they were their own.”

None of that would have made a bit of difference Wednesday morning at Antioch HS, so why would it convince me that it’ll have any bearing now.

I want to give this principal the benefit of the doubt and chalk this letter up to a district template, but you can’t send shit like this out. You can’t assume that parents are too stupid to see through it. Again, this comes from a principal I admire, imagine the other letters out there.

Many kids have stayed home on Thursday and Friday. Those who have attended are consumed with questions about Wednesday’s incident. Trying desperately to understand the incomprehensible. A school shooting occurs and the next day we are out chasing the data like nothing else matters.

A proper district response would have been to close all district schools to examine and heal, reconvening on Monday with concrete plans to make sure a repeat doesn’t happen. Give families a chance to have those hard conversations sans the pressure to return to a school they no longer have complete faith in.

On Sunday night you communicate changes specific to Wednesday’s shooting that will address gaps in the district’s security plans before students arrive Monday morning.

Dr.Battle has to realize that this crisis can not be navigated by casting side eyes, mean mugging, or locking down information. She won’t be able to bully people into submission.

It’ll require a willingness to be vulnerable, to be empathetic, to put students, teachers, and families above the MNPS brand. She’ll need to accept accountability and recognize where the district has fallen short.

You can list all the wonderful things you’ve done, but none of that erases the fact that two kids are dead and a whole school is traumatized.

One of Dr. Battle’s biggest weaknesses is her need to always be the smartest person in the room. In this case, she may need to move the conversation to a different room.

She’s long opposed metal detectors in schools, and security officers as well. Antioch HS had two…for 2k kids.

Per The Tennessean, Battle said metal detectors are often an unreliable measure when it comes to preventing weapons from finding their way onto campus and can have “unintended consequences.”

Those unintended consequences are part of an intellectual conversation. Unfortunately, we no longer have the luxury of holding intellectual conservation and instead must focus on today’s reality – two students are dead due to our failure to protect them.

Battle goes on to say that metal detectors have been part of a decades-long conversation around enhancing safety and security in school buildings. But Battle said the district is focused first on relationships and has sought a balanced approach in offering safe and secure learning environments for students.

If this wasn’t so tragic, that statement would be comical.

How do scripted lesson plans build relationships?

How does an overemphasis on data focus on building relationships?

How does moving principals mid-year build relationships?

How does chronic understaffing build relationships?

MNPS continually tries to manage schools by deemphasizing relationships. Despite Battle and company repeatedly laying claim to fostering relationships.

“These are heartbreaking days for all of us as educators, for everyone at Antioch High School,” Battle said. “Quite frankly, this is a nightmare for us. We already know that this reinforces how important it is for us to know our students, build relationships and foster trust. Our students need us.”

While I don’t know the answers, nor the solutions, I do know that it has come from a strengthening of relationships. That’s the secret sauce.

In closing I return back to that principal’s email, where he writes, “I urge you to ignore the noise. Send your child to school. Keep them there. If there is something you need to know, I will tell you.”

A strong relationship is not centered around one party telling the other they will decide what you need to know. Nor should this statement even need to be written. If we have a strong relationship, I know we have a shared definition of what I need to know and I am confident that you will share that information, without telling me.

That’s what we need, a little less telling me what you are going to do and a little more just doing it.

– – –

Somehow Tennessee’s former commissioner of education, Penny Schwinn, or Peggy, as Trump likes to call her, has gotten herself appointed US Deputy Secretary of Education by President Donald Trump. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.

The only thing more ridiculous is The Tennessean’s David Plaza writing that she deserves the opportunity.

I’m assuming, there is a tinge of sarcasm in his piece, but if that’s the case, it’ll certainly fly over most of his reader’s heads.

I can’t put it any blunter, the woman makes a train wreck look attractive, a dumpster fire appealing.

Insider contracts, wasteful spending of public dollars on private travel, ineffective initiatives, inappropriate relations with subordinates, it is all there on her resume.

She pretends to be a conservative, but she got her start working for California Senator Finestine. Her campaign for the Sacramento school board was driven by Mayor Kevin Johnson, a died-in-the-wool Democrat with his own laundry list of HR violations.

Recently she has tied her brand to never-Trumper Blake Harris. She is currently the COO of Blake Harris Strategy. Harris has made no secret of his disdain for Trump.

The day before the election between Trump and Clinton, Harris tweeted his assessment of the two candidates: “Well, two years and a billion dollars and we get these two losers. Shame on all of us. Let’s do better next time.” Beautiful.

Harris counts noted anti-Trump Republicans like Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse and Alabama Congresswoman Martha Roby among his clients, Sasse name sound familiar?

He was the Dean at the University of Florida who gave Schwinn the $367K gig after she departed the TDOE. One she did for three months without leaving her $1.85 million home in Nashville. I thought President Trump hated remote workers. Hmmm…client and job offer…where have I heard that before when it comes to the Schwinster?

Where it starts to get even more comical is when national education reformers start to chime in about Schwinn’s qualifications. My favorite is Christopher Rufo.

In case you didn’t know, Rufo is the DEI and Critical Race Theory dragon slayer. Apparently, he gazed into the eyes of Ms. Schwinn and saw that those who criticized her were liars and charlatans. At best they were uniformed.

Keep in mind, these critics he’s dismissing, aren’t John Ray Clemmons, Justin Jones, or Gloria Johnson. Rather they are John Rich, Robby Starbuck, and Carol Swain. You don’t get more red meat than that.

Swain is quoted by the Tennessee Star.

“It scares me that Ms. Schwinn has some powerful conservatives pushing her. I have been contacted about meeting with her. My position on Ms. Schwinn is simple. We should look at her track record and not at her promises to convert to conservative views on education. Ms. Schwinn inspires zero confidence among the conservatives in Tennessee who have had to deal with her.”

I would love to hear Rufo ask Schwinn her views on Kamala Harris. During her time as Commissioner, Schwinn prominently displayed the children’s book written book written by Ms Harris and would frequently express her admiration for the former Vice-President.

The exciting news that comes with Ms. Schwinn’s appointment is that perhaps my next visit from a government entity will be the FBI instead of the State Department of Homeland Security.

– – –

Seems to be some issues in MNPS’s Department of Innovative School Models (ISM).  Last Friday, a coordinator announced her pending departure from MNPS.

This departure comes as several stories have emerged regarding ISM grants. As I’ve mentioned before, the ISM designation is a federal one that comes with financial support. Teachers who teach in an ISM school are eligible for an annual bonus, one they have yet to receive.

They were told that those bonuses would be available in early December, yet, as of the last pay period, they haven’t received those bonuses.

Now I’m not saying the two events are linked in any way, but I am saying, there is a growing amount of smoke around the ISM programs, and that usually doesn’t bode well.

– – –

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Categories: Education