Currently, 95 percent of Pearce students are low-income. (A Dallas friend of Georges wrote him to say that her daughter worked on the staff of the Bagpipe and has mentioned how much she admires the work John did and how intelligent he is.) The Dallas media left John alone. An Austin police officer cops were a frequent presence at Pearce stood 15 feet behind me. One thing you should know about Pearce is that this is one of the mainstream schools that filter their students into . After getting his teaching certificate, he had applied for the Murchison opening. 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. The morning of May18, after finishing his workshop, Ray climbed into his burnt-orange Honda Element. I felt lucky that he found any interest in me, because he was so much smarter and worldlier. And they learned of his reentry into their world not through any notice from authorities but instead through word of mouth and random encounters. 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 He looked terrified. More details; Still, none of them understand what drove him to kill the teacher he seemed to love as much as they did. The former press secretary told the reporter that his son got the weapon here at the house, I guess. How are you doing?. Yet for the witnesses of the Murchison shooting, their longing for justice has little to do with the length of Johns sentenceand, indeed, many would agree that more juvenile offenders should be treated as John was, rather than the other way around. Two years later, in 1981, the two sides settled for an undisclosed sum that included a trust fund whose proceeds Ian would receive on his eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays. Composite scores are determined by combining a school's results for each test and grade and weighting scores by the number of students taking each test. It was a curious spectacle, one that Americans had not yet come to dread: a young white man with a firearm. It struck me as odd that I had never heard about his sons having killed a schoolteacher, particularly since I had been a staff writer at Texas Monthly for most of the nineties. Browse reviews, directions, phone numbers and more info on Pearce Middle School. Press secretary George Christian (far left) at the White House with President Lyndon B. Johnson (far right) and foreign policy advisers on October 11, 1967. . Susie Gerrie Davis, a former student of Rod Graysons who witnessed the shooting, photographed at Murchison in February. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. The board can rename a facility if it has been more than 50 years since the official naming of school or if the building is repurposed or has a programming change, according to AISD. If instead of vilifying teachers, we tackled the real causes of educational inequality, perhaps we could provide students like Daniel a better chance a chance to do more with their lives than stuffing pita bread. So I drew a deep breath, turned to the officer and said, You can let him go. The boy walked away. Shared Time School: No Why not? Today, because of the absence of information, those who watched John shoot their teacher are still left wondering about a fundamental question: Has he ever expressed any remorse? Davis later called their former teacher Marilyn Eichenbaum DuVon, who then reconnected with other former students who were in Graysons classroom that day. Above all, after years on the government payroll, George had a private political consulting business to run. You know, I consider myself to be a pretty strong-minded person. Ever since then, whenever I walk into an unfamiliar place, Im always looking for a way out. According to his classmates, he was the smartest one in the whole group, a great student and a really good artist with a wry wit who drew political cartoons that could have been in any newspaper. His preternatural maturity meant that he always got cast as the older person in the school plays, and he dressed like a grown-up (often in striped short-sleeved shirts and crisp slacks). James Neff, a reporter from the Austin American-Statesman, rang the doorbell. Roughly. It was also the case that an adolescent boy could, in broad daylight, during the morning rush hour, walk along a suburban street and down a grassy hill to school carrying a Browning .22-caliber rifle and nobody would think to stop him. Beginning in the 2014-15 school year, Garcia and Pearce will operate as single-gender schools, where our exemplary staff will deliver focused, customized curriculum that results in students' continued academic success and provides them with the opportunity to thrive socially and academically. Although TEA has offered to allow the District to submit a repurposing plan, the TEA has stated in the July 2 letter that "additional details are needed before a repurposing plan can be formally considered by the agency. The State Bar of Texas requires law students to disclose only current character issues and mental illnesses, not past ones. The boy with a gun. We'll have more responses as the day goes on. Graduates: Russell Berwick (1965-1969), Steven Ates (1978-1980), Ann Burt (1976-1977), Steven Ates (1978-1979) Myspace Pearce-middle school Homes for Sale and Real Estate in Austin TX Showing 18 properties. SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. We have single grade classrooms and a variety of "extras" offered at our school. As she would later say, At that point, as a mother, as a teacher, as a human being, as pained as I was that Rod was dead, I felt sorry for that kid. 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. Ron Bolek, our Ecuadorean-American principal, liked to compare our situation to the Peace Corps. Though Grayson resisted playing favorites, he became especially close with one student in particular who shared his love of stage acting: John Christian. For this, Jorge hated me. Passing by Murchison on the way, he saw his father walking hurriedly downhill to the school. Most of pearce-middle homes are 3 bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. Although Reagan students made significant academic improvement based upon preliminary 2009 TAKS results, Commissioner Scott also advised District officials the campus would again be rated /Academically Unacceptable/ this year. Website. 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. I once asked Mr. Green how he stayed upbeat at the end of a difficult day. We yearn to think that caring, hardworking teachers can change the world, or at least their students lives. But no, I wasnt the Rob Draper who had gone to Murchison. What had kept him from writing it himself was that he hated the thought of bringing anguish to his former classmate John Christian. Our award-winning, top-rated, and highly ranked schools serve Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Austin communities. Can't keep up with happenings around town? Map. To the astonishment of his classmates, the normally reserved John Christian proceeded to enter an alternate universe that bore no relationship to Stowes novel. They added, But Mr. Grayson, John was acting so weird! Business profile of Pearce Middle School, located at 6401 N Hampton Dr., Austin, TX 78723. 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. The story, written in unsparingly graphic language, was about robots that prowled the streets and castrated men. Middle School: Pearce Middle; School District: Austin . But no school shooting is quite the same. Why would a teacher with other options work in such a stressful, violent setting? 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 . His dad was the main topic of conversation, said Bazar. This school has received a rating of 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, which reflects how Pearce Middle School performed on the state's standardized tests. Thats especially true when no resources are spared to treat a violent adolescent, as was the case with John Christian. August 1996 to December 2002. Nearest Education in Austin, TX. The collateral continuing tragedy is this silence around the event. He added, I know a couple people whove said, We dont know where this [Texas Monthly] story is going. They dont want it to be a hit piece on the Christian family or something that says, This kid escapes justice. I dont want to hurt John. Few, if any, had considered the possibility that John might reappear in their midst. State Board of Education, Pearce Middle School, Information is power. Hes back in the neighborhood. John stepped into the doorway. It is part of the Austin Independent School District. The institution offered a full academic curriculum as well as a rigorous daily regimen of group and individual therapy with multiple mental health professionals. But we have not done a good job bringing it up directly. They were the bedrock of Pearce. The decision has been greeted with dismay. He apologized for being such an asshole in class, and proudly told me about his wife and two children. On a smaller scale, restorative dialogues have been used in disputes between local police and their respective communities, including in Austin. As I walked to my desk, I noticed Leticia, one of my best students, clandestinely reading something tucked under her desk. After years of counseling and prayer, John Ray decided he had finally developed the emotional fortitude to revisit the formative trauma of his youth. Slowly, she could feel compassion seep in. Then they were clinging to her, sobbing hysterically. Born in Mexico, Daniel had a semi-constant scowl on his in-the-sun-all-day face and tough-guy strut that gave him a notable presence. Reunite with old classmates, learn about class reunions and take a look back at your yearbook photos! . Then he would instruct his students to write a free-form essay or short story based on a poem he would read aloud or a curious drawing he had sketched on the blackboard. Pearce Middle School austin, texas Not the school you were looking for? Man. $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. There is also the manner in which the collateral victims were dealt withor, more precisely, not dealt with. 13. Find 1 listings related to Pearce Middle School in Ccr on YP.com. There was another connection that wasnt reported at the time. Sure, I made a small part of the day more pleasant for some students, but I didnt change the course of any of my kids lives, much less the nature of the school. Speechless, I watched the scene unfold. Of note are projected double-digit increases from last year for African American students in reading (12 percentage points), all student groups in writing (15 to 25 percentage points) and Hispanic students in science (10 percentage points). When they were gone, he stepped out into the empty house. She led several of them into a nurses examination room and told them to stay there. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. The former press secretary declined to supply information about whom his son was living with or how the determination had been made that John should be treated on an outpatient basis. In any such scenario, however, the process can succeed only if both sides participate. Pearce Middle School Information School location: 6401 NORTH HAMPTON DR AUSTIN, TX 78723 (512) 414-3234 School district: AUSTIN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT School Rating Tweet Search This middle school has a total enrollment of 458 students with approximately 49 full-time teachers. As University of Texas professor Marilyn Armour, the founder of the Institute of Restorative Justice and Restorative Dialogue, told me, There are some people who believe that the amount of time served, the severity of the punishment, will bring some measure of closure or satisfaction. 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.. We played backfield a lot because we were both bad. These are among a few of the qualities to consider when choosing a school to send your child to.