2008-2009 Community Connections

The following article was printed in the July 25, 2008 edition of the Kansas City, Kansan

Hard to cope with this loss

I had a plan. This is the week that administrators come back to work in the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools. In my column this week, I had planned to talk about their return, the beginning of the school year, and what our plans were.

How quickly things can change. Last night, I got a message telling me that a Sumner Academy of Arts and Science student, Scott B. Sappington Jr., had been shot to death.

Wow, did this hit us all hard. If you are a regular reader of this column, you know that I feel responsible for all of our kids. I am always asking my staff what we can do for the kids we haven't reached yet. I told you the story of Antwain, and how hard that was for me.

But Scott was different. Scott was a wonderful, wonderful kid, who was doing absolutely everything we could have asked him to do. He was going into his senior year at Sumner, getting ready to play football and apply to college. He had just dropped off his siblings at his grandmother's house. He was on his way to work. Today would have been Scott's 17th birthday ...

This kind of random violence just doesn't make any sense to me. In fact, it breaks my heart. As a mother, my heart goes out to his family. I want his family to know that Scott and all of them are in all of our thoughts and prayers, and that we stand with them during this difficult time.

As a former teacher and former principal, my heart goes out to the Sumner community. You lost a great kid, a shining star, gone too soon. Hold on to each other, tell your Scott stories, laugh if you want to, cry if you want to. Just hold on to each other, and hold on to your memories of Scott.

I especially want to express my appreciation to Scott's friends, at least 50 of whom who showed up at the school this afternoon, not in anger, but to remember him, pray together, and support each other. This was the most fitting tribute you could possibly give him.

As superintendent, and as a leader in this community, I just have to wonder what responsibilities we have, and what our responses might be. We're losing too many kids, and when our young people see one of their own cut down so young, it takes away some of their innocence, some of their hope for their own futures.

I wish I had the answers. I wish I could say something to you, and to his classmates and teachers, that would help make sense of this tragedy. I wish I could say something that would prevent it from happening to someone else's son, someone else's friend, someone else's student.

The only thing I can say is this: We have GOT to figure this out. As we continue to raise our expectations for students, to push them to achieve academically and in extracurricular activities, we must find a way to keep them safe, to keep their world from falling apart. None of us can do it alone; not students, not schools, not the district, not even the community. If we are going to make a change, it has to be all of us.

Please remember Scott: In your thoughts, in your prayers, and most importantly, in what you do in this community. The best tribute that any of us could pay to Scott would be to work, side by side and shoulder to shoulder, to keep from losing any more kids. This is a great community, and we can’t let anyone take that from us, or from our children.

Dr. Jill Shackelford is superintendent of the KCK Public Schools District. During the summer her column appears every two weeks, only in the Kansas City Kansan.

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