Oxford: Five Years After, ‘I want people to know we’re OK’
By Brenda Ortega
MEA Voice Editor
In five years since a deadly school shooting devastated the Oxford community, much has been done to heal the collective trauma, says Oxford High School Band Director Jim Gibbons: “We’ve kind of turned a corner in some ways.”
New building security systems and increased focus on mental health helped to restore a sense of safety. Close bonds forged among educators bolstered their ability to support students, family members, and themselves through a long struggle.
“We have a lot of teachers who could retire who haven’t,” said Gibbons, the local union president for more than 20 years. “I’m incredibly optimistic about what Oxford is capable of.”
Yet reminders of the terrible events of Nov. 30, 2021, still can overwhelm the good, he added. “That slice of life can sometimes completely bury all of the phenomenal things that have happened and do happen in the everyday life of our kids.”
Not a day goes by that he doesn’t remember. “There’s a part of me — when I walk in in the morning and the building is quiet — that is honoring their memory.”
When a 15-year-old student gunman killed four and injured seven at Oxford High School, the community reeled and public condolences poured in, grieving the senseless loss of life: Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Justin Shilling, 17; Tate Myre, 16; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.
“People may not have known how much we appreciated it, but to have the state’s teachers standing with us and supporting us and understanding us — that was huge,” Gibbons said.
The aftermath, amid the holiday season, was grim. Recovery has been painful and slow. The work continues as folks seek healing in coming together, he said.
“That looks like 7,000 people showing up on Friday night for a football game. It’s selling out the auditorium for the musical. It’s the donations that we get from businesses to serve lunch to staff during the week of November 30th.”
District practices around each anniversary have evolved, but Oxford schools will likely never be open on that date. The six-year mark will be extra challenging because Nov. 30 will again fall on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, as in 2021, Gibbons said.
“I think the cadence of that is going to be hard for people who were in the building.”
A hopeful sign noted by Gibbons and wife Melissa — an English teacher in the district — has been the large number of students from the class of 2022 who recently graduated from college with degrees in helping professions: teaching, therapy, medicine, social work, counseling.
Not only were these students seniors when the shooting happened, “that came off of two years of trauma associated with COVID,” Gibbons said.
He sees the young people’s commitment to service as a testament to the love and care the Oxford community has both given and received. For that, he’s grateful.
“I want people to know we’re OK. We still struggle, but we’re good. And Oxford is a great place to be.”
Read our package of stories, Oxford: Five Years After
