Jan. 20, 2017, was a traditional morning for Greg Johnson, the principal of West Liberty-Salem Excessive Faculty, an hour outdoors of Columbus, Ohio, when he heard the information no college chief ever needs to listen to: There had been a taking pictures on campus.
Flanked by assistant principal Andy McGill, Johnson rushed towards the restroom, the place he noticed a backpack and some shell casings on the ground. They heard two college students speaking—one in every of them was attempting to persuade the opposite to not shoot once more as a result of he hadn’t killed anyone but. Once they entered the restroom, they noticed that Logan Cole, a junior, had been shot twice at shut vary and already sustained severe accidents.
“I knew then that every little thing had modified,” Johnson mentioned in an interview with Training Week. (Watch the interview above.)
Collectively, Johnson, McGill, and Cole have been capable of persuade the shooter to place down his weapon. A extra tragic final result had been averted, however over the course of the subsequent few months, Johnson mentioned he needed to cope with the “what ifs.”
“I didn’t remorse stepping into there [to face the shooter],” he mentioned. “However I needed to grapple with, what if that scenario had ended in another way for my college, and for my household?”
Johnson spoke with Training Week about how his management journey modified after the taking pictures. It made him replicate on how his vulnerability may have a constructive, trickle-down impact: If academics and college students noticed that he, too, was struggling, they’d be extra open about their very own challenges coping with the taking pictures’s aftermath.
Different issues modified, too—two years in the past, his eldest daughter Addie married Cole, the scholar survivor. This hyperlinks Johnson inextricably with that day in 2017, however for him, it additionally reinforces the positives that got here out of a tragic scenario.
That is Johnson’s story about restore and forgiveness, in his personal phrases. The account has been edited for readability and size.
Recognizing trauma
I fully underestimated the traumatic impact that the taking pictures had on our college students and neighborhood. A part of the rationale was the way in which the day began and ended. It may have ended rather a lot worse. Dad and mom have been actually grateful about the way in which the college intervened.
Logan and his household, within the aftermath, modeled for our entire neighborhood how vital forgiveness is. When somebody from our neighborhood began a GoFundMe web page for the Cole household, [the family] needed to make it possible for a 3rd of what was raised went to supporting a school fund for the shooter’s youthful sister.
We skilled what I might name a “honeymoon interval” afterwards. The primary day that our children got here again, different faculties had despatched photos and banners that lined the halls so our college students have been surrounded by love and help. For the primary a number of months what you noticed at college was very constructive.
Steadily, I began to seek out that a whole lot of youngsters have been placing on that constructive face as a result of that’s what they have been seeing at college, they usually needed to replicate what all people else was displaying them. At dwelling, they have been having nightmares. The children have been struggling however thought it was simply them that wasn’t doing effectively.
I used to be responsible of exacerbating this. You reward their grit, you reward that toughness, you reward the scholars for having the ability to come again into the constructing. You unintentionally inform college students that if you’re struggling, that’s an indication of weak point.
A month after the incident, an increasing number of college students began coming into the counselor’s workplace to speak. As a college, we then turned extra intentional about discovering out who wanted assist. We screened college students who’d skilled trauma to see how they’re coping with it. Everyone goes to expertise trauma in their very own method. But when someone is experiencing the results of a traumatic occasion, they usually’re not speaking about it, they’re not getting the eye they want.
We have been intentional about bringing enjoyable again to the constructing. We didn’t need our id to be that college the place a taking pictures occurred.
Greg Johnson, principal, West Liberty-Salem Excessive
Once I spoke to my daughter Addie, who was a scholar at college when the taking pictures occurred, I understood that what the youngsters went by means of was completely different. For me, I used to be informed there was a taking pictures. I noticed an injured scholar, and virtually instantly, the shooter put the gun on the ground and pushed it throughout to us. In that sense, the occasion was over.
However our college students, a few of whom had evacuated by means of home windows, spent 30 to 40 minutes operating throughout muddy fields in the midst of January, and hid in close by farmhouses as a result of they didn’t know the place the shooter was. Of their minds, their buddies, their academics, their principal have been lifeless. It was excellent news that nobody died, however it doesn’t undo what you went by means of, what your mind skilled. It impacts you ceaselessly.
Once I spoke to college students after they got here again from the summer season, the brand new college yr appeared even more durable. A few of that constructive stuff that we noticed after the incident, individuals making an enormous deal to point out how a lot they care, rightfully disappeared. So after they got here again within the fall, they thought, “Issues have gone again to regular, however I don’t really feel regular inside.” They couldn’t perceive why it was laborious for them.
As directors, we have been intentional about bringing enjoyable again to the constructing. We didn’t need our id to be that college the place a taking pictures occurred. There may be a whole lot of caring and compassion, however we needed to make college enjoyable, and make college students keep in mind what life was like earlier than the taking pictures.
Going to remedy
It was simply previous the one-year anniversary once I realized one thing had modified in me, too. We have been in a workers assembly and someone requested how I used to be doing. I informed them, “I don’t suppose I’m fairly again to the place I used to be, however I believe I’m doing OK.”
I had taken a whole lot of the burden by myself shoulders. Anytime I noticed a child or a trainer who was struggling, I really feel I didn’t do what I wanted to do for them. That’s when one of many counselors mentioned, “Greg, you’re not the principal you was once, and we want that principal again once more.” That was a wakeup name.
I began seeing a counselor, and the one factor that we labored by means of early on was coping with the scenario emotionally. She requested me, “Did you cry? Did you grieve?” The way in which I function is that when introduced with a scenario, I rationalize it. Right here’s what occurred, right here’s what we have to do subsequent. Making an attempt to work by means of a number of the feelings of that day was useful.
The college additionally wanted to see that I am a human, that there are issues that I battle with.
Greg Johnson, principal, West Liberty-Salem Excessive
I labored by means of issues like guilt. We had one workers member who was in a room for 2 hours after the taking pictures. He was missed, and I didn’t understand that he was nonetheless in hiding. There was a whole lot of guilt that I didn’t go examine on my youngsters. My spouse was a 4th grade trainer within the constructing. All three of our youngsters have been within the constructing. I knew my son, in seventh grade then, was OK and within the health club. There was some guilt there, as a result of I believe he handled a whole lot of worry because the taking pictures was occurring, figuring out that I’m most likely headed in that course.
I’ve been engaged on my doctorate these days, and one of many subjects that I’ve studied is post-traumatic progress. What I’ve discovered from that’s that no one needs to say one thing good got here out of a college taking pictures. After all, if we may return in time and stop it from occurring, we might. However I did develop as an individual from that have. I believe I’m a greater principal now. I’m extra delicate, extra conscious and faster to succeed in out to others. I’m extra keen to be susceptible.
When it first occurred, I believed the college must see a powerful, constant, constructive power from their principal, and that’s what I attempted to point out. However the college additionally wanted to see that I’m a human, that there are issues that I battle with, and that’s that vulnerability piece.
The children are all proper
I’ve been stunned. Quite a few center and highschool college students from the time of the incident have determined to enter schooling. Part of me was involved it could flip them away. Addie obtained employed as a speech therapist in a college. Our son is majoring in schooling at Ohio State this yr.
Quite a few college students from that point have been additionally married inside three to 4 years of graduating. There’s all the time a priority after such incidents that college students will improve their dangerous behaviors. However I assume they took inventory of what’s vital to them after they realized that life could be quick.
I do realize it’s when one other occasion occurs that issues are unhealthy. When there’s a taking pictures, it takes you again. A few of our college students attain out to every when there’s one other taking pictures, or as Jan. 20 approaches.
