The 1978 killing of Rod Grayson wasnt the first murderous intrusion into the sanctity of Americas schools. He caught up to John at the top of the hill. Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. If you have any concerns please review the Terms of Use before using this site. Several of his classmates who had been in the room that morning didnt respond to Rays invitation. Go to Austin, Texas to view events for the entire area, and not just this court location. Situated at what was, back then, the northern edge of the city, the neighborhood was populated with doctors, bankers, professors, restaurateurs, and pastors. last name at graduation Last name, please! The District was also directed to secure private tutorial or instructional services to assist Reagan students. Search for Texas classmates, friends, family, and memories in one of the largest collections of Online Univeristy, College, Military, and High School Yearbook images and photos! The bell ending second period rang, and I braced myself against the commotion as a river of arms and legs, low-slung backpacks and sagging jeans, the in-kids and the trying-to-fit-in kids pushed their way to class. Timberlawn, which opened in 1917, was a national model for inpatient treatment during the time of Johns residency. Should I do that? Im just a scaredy-cat. Virginia Tech. Like many attendance-zoned high-poverty schools, Pearce was often a chaotic place where discipline issues, student absenteeism, low parent involvement and high teacher turnover were the norm. As he would write on the Facebook group that Ray dedicated to Grayson, That moment is still as raw and real and technicolor today as forty years ago.. Ray was among several Murchison alumni who went on to UT. In 1995, after the first installment of that money arrived, Laura and Ian sought to fund a bench that would be dedicated to Rod, situated on a trail he loved on Lady Bird Lake. Homes for Sale in Pearce-middle school, Austin TX. #2 Northeast High School Austin, Texas Unclassified Updated: 2020-02-21 Northeast Early College High School is a public, co-educational secondary school in Austin, Texas. The two of them spoke late into the night, and their conversation resumed the next morning. Gentle. The Superintendent invites the public, especially students, parents and staff of Pearce, to attend a July 15 Community Meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the school, where she will talk through the options for the school. Then she prayed to God for grace toward John. AISD projects that when TEA releases the final Accountability Ratings on July 31, all student groups at Pearce MS will meet the 2009 state standards in reading, math, social studies, and writing. Cathy Olson Muth, a former student of Rod Graysons who witnessed the shooting, photographed at Murchison in February. Eisenlohrs children attended Highland Park High School, in the affluent community where John would spend the next two and a half years. The two of them then walked across the hall into the classroom of Eichenbaum, who recalled, John went directly from that substitute teacher to me, and there was nothing at all memorable about his behavior.. She handed me the notebook. When Rod Grayson interviewed on June 20, 1977, for the job of teaching the gifted and talented students of Murchison Junior High, he was an unemployed 28-year-old. To Garcias surprise, the typically stoic father broke down in tears. ------------------------------------------. Ive had the conversation with other people in the family, but not him. Everyone knew Johnhe cut a figure, said Logan Bazar, one of his closest friends at Murchison. Moreover, segregating our poorest students in high-poverty schools, as we often do, exacerbates the problem. But in the modern era of test-driven school reform, filling in bubbles is the bottom line, the final word and the only thing that matters in the eyes of Bushs No Child Left Behind and Obamas Race to the Top. Then, on May 18, 2018, I received an email from a Washington, D.C.based journalist named David Nather, whom I had never met. Pearce Middle School has been a particularly challenging campus for Austin ISD. Wow, she thought. The following school year, they were bused to different high schools. The institution offered a full academic curriculum as well as a rigorous daily regimen of group and individual therapy with multiple mental health professionals. 13. Passing by Murchison on the way, he saw his father walking hurriedly downhill to the school. For one thing, Ray barely remembered the details of that dayMay 18, 1978when a friend at his Austin junior high school walked into class and, in front of Ray and twenty other eighth graders, shot and killed their teacher, Wilbur Rod Grayson. I stood in the hall and tried to slow my breathing. Nearly a month passed before Statesman reporter Guillermo Garcia was tipped off that John had moved in with a Dallas family. I think we can tell the story, we can own the pain, we can call this what it was, without being in the spirit of hurting the person who did it.. This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue ofTexas Monthly with the headline The Aftermath. Subscribe today. Can't keep up with happenings around town? Schools working with high percentages of students who receive free and reduced-price lunch get extra points. Walking away, Smith felt a sense of disgust. Sandy Hook. I will never be over seeing Mr. Grayson murdered by a friend and classmate. In this area, Pearce was only two to five percentage points away from meeting required improvement and being rated Academically Acceptable. Why would a teacher with other options work in such a stressful, violent setting? Telephone: 512-414-3234County: Travis County, Pearce Middle School6401 North Hampton DrAustin TX 78723, Pearce Middle School6401 N Hampton DrAustin TX 78723, CSA Name: *NR Instead, without any sort of plan, he walked outside, across the lawn, under the canopy of oaks and the great magnolia tree, and onto the sidewalk. Still, as a juvenile, he could not be charged with murder and tried as an adult. They were the bedrock of Pearce. Only later in the evening, when they gathered for beers at a bar in their old neighborhood of Northwest Hills, did someone ask the question that was on all of their minds: Has anybody heard from John? SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Robert Draper is a contributing editor at Texas Monthly,a contributing writer atNational Geographic and the New York Times Magazine,and the author of the upcoming book To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq. View Event; Austin Middle School; 07 Mar 2023 8:00 am. Pearce-middle school Homes for Sale and Real Estate in Austin TX Showing 18 properties. After our encounter I thought I might have an easier time with him in class. Just as quickly, he jolted back to the present. In 1973, Betty gave birth to David, the newest addition to the Pearce family. Eventually, they drove together to Assumption Cemetery, on the south side of Austin. Its a skit! But no, I wasnt the Rob Draper who had gone to Murchison. . John, their quiet resident genius, had come out of his shell! Canyon Ridge Middle School Public | 6th Grade - 8th Grade 12601 Country Trails Ln, Austin, TX 78732: 10: (Students' names have been changed.) View Event; Austin Middle School; . School ratings based on state standardized test scores and comparing those results to other schools in the same state. Andre Terry, a former student of Rod Graysons who witnessed the shooting, photographed at Murchison in February. The anguish that has plagued the Murchison students presages the kind of long-tail trauma that many of todays witnesses to shootings will be burdened with for the rest of their lives. Driving home from the restaurant the image of Daniel lingered in my head. Such occasions have famously occurred in resolving interethnic calamities in South Africa and Rwanda and throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. School Type: 1-Regular school Our MLS listings are updated every minute. Austin, Texas 78723 512-522-4190 Principal Ms. Holliday pholliday@austinachieve.org School Hours M - Th: 7:15AM - 3:00PM F: 7:15AM - 12:45PM Our multifaceted middle school curriculum is founded in our rigorous standards for college readiness and includes a variety of advanced academic courses and an extensive wellness curriculum. Pearce Middle School - Austin_, Texas Ash Fork Elementary School - Ash_Fork, Arizona Romance, Arkansas Perry, Maine Sudduth Elementary School - Starkville, Mississippi St. Mary Star Of The Sea School - Chicago, Illinois Shields Middle School - Chicago, Illinois Accident, Maryland Christa Mcauliffe Academy - Wichita, Kansas Milford, Indiana A row of permanently locked orange lockers lined the cream cinderblock walls. Some of the students extended their middle fingers to the press in hopes of stopping them from taking pictures. Pearce Middle School is located at the address 6401 North Hampton Drive in Austin, Texas 78723-2042. This is a 6-bed, 7.5-bath, 8,401 sqft property. . George died of lung cancer in 2002, and Jo Anne died in 2015. Another Murchison student, David Mider, ran into John at the Texas Tavern, in the UT student union, and learned that the boy who had killed one of Miders favorite teachers was now studying at UT. Daniel, who wore the same dirty shirt to school several days a week, was smart but angry. There he is! someone exclaimed, directing their attention to a figure outside the classroom window who was heading down the grassy hill beside the football field. Before I came to Pearce I knew that many of its students scored poorly on standardized tests; the school was rated Low Performing the year before I arrived. Refi. I chose Pearce because I was going to make a difference; I would do whatever it took to help these kids overcome classism and racism and escape poverty. He could convince even the most recalcitrant 13-year-old to see a problem from a different angle. 2215 East 51st Street Austin, TX 78723. State Board of Education, Pearce Middle School, Information is power. Santa Fe. Map. Laura couldnt help but wonder if she would have gotten a different answer had her last name been Christian. For years, Bazar would be haunted by this conversation. }Apartment Selector offers schoolss, lofts and town homes in Austin TX. Savage, he said with a smile on his face, its me, Daniel. Daniel, the malcontent from my seventh period class, had grown at least a foot since I last saw him. Nothing is ever gonna happen to that guy. They were among the many Murchison alumni who would later recall the Columbine tragedy as a moment when they felt engulfed by their own past and became, in effect, witnesses again to the loss of their innocence. The only other non-elementary school in Central Texas rated Low Performing was in the Travis County Juvenile Detention Center. After getting his teaching certificate, he had applied for the Murchison opening. He wore baggy jeans and a white T-shirt several sizes too large for his wiry frame. You just dont understand him the way I do, he said. We have music, art, 1:1 Chromebooks, PE . Pearce Middle School Alumni in Austin, Texas. Exquisite finish out with imported flooring and lighting and much more! Pearce Middle School, located at 6401 N. Hampton Drive, was originally named for James E. Pearce, who was the principal of Austin High School from 1895-1917. Meanwhile, Laura Grayson arrived at Brackenridge Hospital. . Hes back in the neighborhood. Fire Ants Have Unleashed Chaos in Texas for Decades. Ten years later, in 2009, Rays youngest daughter, Olivia, who was ten years old, was struck by a Cadillac Escalade and killed at a street crossing on Razorback Road while her sister Hannah watched. What remained unreported until now was the identity of the man who had become Johns adoptive father. The Principal is Ron Bolek who can be contacted at (512)414-3234. 390 Sq. At 14 years old, Marcos struggled mightily academically, and was just biding time until he could leave school and go work construction with his uncles. . Too simple to work, I thought. To learn more about our back. Though the tall, slender, floppy-haired boy seldom spoke up in class except to correct someone elses error, John seemed immune to the self-doubt that consumed his peers. . Gunpowder. I had run into Daniel on the streets of the Two-Three a few months earlier. If recent college graduates could donate two years to a starving village in Ghana, why not commit a few years to a school in a neglected corner of East Austin? Austin, TX 78750 512-428-2650 Nope. The Superintendent expects to provide Trustees with options for consideration, including an administrative recommendation in the coming days. Find the full announcement from the district after the jump. For one, there is the trajectory of John Christian: from gifted student to teenage killer to middle-aged tax attorney quietly working and living in Austin today. Pearce Middle School will close this fall under orders from the state, Austin school district Superintendent Meria Carstarphen announced Wednesday. But she could see Rods cowboy boots poking out. The School Shooting That Austin Forgot - Texas Monthly True Crime The Aftermath In 1978, an eighth grader killed his teacher. Im not proud of that., As Ray explained it, The tragedy is that Mr. Grayson was killed. And, someone else said, hes got a gun!. At a March 17 work session, trustees discussed the timeline for possibly renaming the school, which will open in August as an all-girls academy along with Gus Garcia Middle School, which will be an all-boys school. August 1996 to December 2002. Nor was it the habit of adolescents to speculate on anyones psychological burdens apart from their ownunless, that is, they were confided in, as Bazar was by John. However, despite this pattern of achievement and improvement, and being projected to meet Federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), TEA has determined that Pearce MS will again be rated AU because science results will not meet the standard for each student group. Ron Bolek, our Ecuadorean-American principal, liked to compare our situation to the Peace Corps. High-poverty schools like Pearce only perpetuate this gap. Im incredibly grateful for the sense of being found and rescued, in spite of myself, in spite of what could have been, in spite of all that is. Whats Up With All the Kangaroos on the Loose in Texas? Ive talked about it with my wife quite a bit. Magnet School: No Edit info for Pearce Middle School, located at 6401 N Hampton Dr, Austin, TX 78723. She screamed and contemplated throwing herself out of the car, onto the highway. It occurred to him that he might be able to comfort his Murchison Junior High classmates, even as he leaned on them. Ray called his old classmate Susie Gerrie Davis, who happened to be in Colorado on vacation. Community members had until March 20 to submit nominations. Some have called this narrative the myth of magical teaching. So in February 2018, Ray created the Facebook group, and he waited. Mider wondered. These are among a few of the qualities to consider when choosing a school to send your child to. Sitting on a stool, he would begin class with a meditation exercise. Davis later called their former teacher Marilyn Eichenbaum DuVon, who then reconnected with other former students who were in Graysons classroom that day. Cycling had become one of his preferred forms of therapy, and he went for a long ride that day, south to Barton Springs. | Of course, few Murchison students paid much attention to such distinctions. The cops are coming, I shouted at him. His wife, Laura, herself a teacher at Austins LBJ High School, had given birth to their son, Ian, earlier that day. When they were gone, he stepped out into the empty house. They do not bear John any ill will. . The familys position, which has remained unchanged over the years, is that a thirteen-year-old boy fell into a deep, perhaps psychotic state of depression and committed a terrible misdeed. The music Im into is the Doobie Brothers, Moody Blues, Pablo Cruise, Queen, Simon & Garfunkel, the Little River Band, and The Doorsplus another hundred like Santana, Kansas, Styx, Chicago, and Boston who I think are good. Support the free press, so we can support Austin. I seek to put myself, as much as Im able, in the proximity of others suffering. CLOSED NOW. Whats Rod got his kids doing now? Austin Independent School District. You know, theres been that conversation. Ripoff Report on: Pearce Middle School - Pearce middle school hellish student gangstas threatened me rip off my brothers vehicle austin texas. Like others who had experienced the Murchison shooting, Nather remained perplexed by the aftermath: the swiftness of the court proceedings, the secrecy that attended Johns road to recovery, and the seeming normalcy of his adult life. File your review. Most of pearce-middle homes are 3 bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. I think John had reached a point where he was never going to be good enough. Then the images resurfaced out of nowhere. The Pearce Elementary School District serves the residents of the Pearce/Sunsites community as well as other local communities like Sunizona and Cochise. He said something about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. My editor at GQ ultimately decided the story would not work without the shooters participation. School Listings. In addition to meeting the standards in all areas but science, each student group at Pearce is projected to show performance increases in reading, math, social studies, writing, /and/ science. His dad was the main topic of conversation, said Bazar. Rate this page. The Austin Independent School District received formal notification from Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott that he is ordering the closure of Pearce Middle School, effective with the 2009-2010 school year. Richarte High School, Georgetown TX At the same time, I dont think the opposite of that is to deny what happened to us. Give it to me, now. If I hadnt been so shaken by the hallway incident minutes earlier I probably would have been more empathetic, more myself, sensitive to the fear and embarrassment in her eyes. 3324 Pearce Rd was last sold on Apr 8, 2019 for $0. Twenty feet away a few female teachers stood aghast. I havent heard from you, so I dont really know what to write. Seared into his brain were two images: his friend John walking into the classroom with a rifle in his hand and his teacher lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Homes similar to 4901 Springdale Rd #104 are listed between $181K to $1M at an average of $450 per square foot. Two of the students, John Christian and John Ray, would be giving an oral presentation of a chapter from Harriet Beecher Stowes classic novel Uncle Toms Cabin. 3308 Pearce Rd, Austin, TX 78730 $1,595,000 Est. Austin, Texas 78731 (512)441-1411 512-469-2975 (fax) Georgetown . As an ordained nondenominational minister, he is decidedly unorthodox: he tends to preach outdoors, in natural settings; he wears cowboy boots and untucked denim shirts; and he has a Christlike mane of hair. Agency Type District: 1-Local school district Even for those of us who werent in the classroom, there is a chilling kind of flashback that happens with every school shooting, he wrote me. I would rather not recall the aspects of my stint at Pearce that seem to affirm this assessment: the death threats, the police roaming the hallways, the schoolyard beatings. . Postal Code: 78723 . Whoever dies first has to come back and tell the other if the candles mean anything. After Rod died, she went to see a psychic, who informed her, Hes standing behind you. Skip to main content. But no school shooting is quite the same. Nor did it match in sheer bloodshed the later infamy bestowed upon campuses that we now recite as a mournful litany: Columbine. $6,444,100 7 bed 5.5+ bath 12,000 sqft 3.13 acre lot Ask an agent Property Details Price & Tax History Schools Neighborhood Environmental Risk Back. When Neff replied that Grayson and his wife had an eleven-month-old son, the reporter watched as something seemed to collapse inside the father. Elementary: Blanton Elementary School, Austin Texas<BR>Middle: Pearce Middle School, Austin Texas<BR>Jr. High: Kealing Jr. High, Science Math Technology strand, Austin Texas<BR>High School . She will be working with the Board of Trustees and the Pearce community to explore short- and long-term options to best meet the needs of students. The population of 150 or so residents included about thirty juveniles, of whom no more than sixteen in Johns age range were housed in a separate dormitory.