Earlier this week my hometown community was rocked to it’s core when a 2nd grade teacher was allegedly found with needles, black tar heroin, methamphetamine and “Xanax footballs“ on school property. The story has been splashed all over metro and national news, echoing a myriad of concerns and judgement. As a 1997 graduate of Sapulpa High School, I can say it is heartbreaking not to mention embarrassing.
To say that it has caused a stir would put it mildly; hundreds of alumni and community members have voiced their frustration on social media and in hushed conversations around town. Everyone wants answers and everyone is out for blood; a Superintendent’s resignation, a new Board of Education! But what most people don’t understand is that those entities answer to the public. And the public body of tax paying citizens in Sapulpa has failed to demand change, demand better of our administration. We have become reactive and not proactive. So when those same voices ask ‘who is running the district’, they need to take a long look in the mirror and realize, they are the one’s running the district – or not running it. The passion of protest we see now, needs to exist all the time in a proactive form.
Sapulpa Public Schools has endured its fair share of drama over the course of the last several years; suicide committing softball coach who got caught in a sexual scandal with a student, alleged racial discrimination, wage discrepancies and now a 2nd grade teacher’s alleged drug activity and possible exposure to students. And as if this week wasn’t drama filled enough, a story broke that a male high school teacher and coach is currently suspended while under investigation for alleged “inappropriate behavior”, the nature of which cannot be disclosed due to state statutes. When will the cycle of scandal end?
But no one is willing to talk about the elephants in the room – drugs in our community and the easy access young, vibrant minds have to them AND our community’s lack of passion for demanding better for our district, for our kids. The events that have transpired over the last several days has me wondering; how did we fail Megan? How can the community do better? How did our administration fail to see the signs? Now I want to know, how are we going to prevent it from happening again?
I hope this starts a grass root movement as it is imperative Sapulpan’s take hold of the wheel and stop the cycle of denial in our school district and start demanding accountability.
A. L. Long
