The List

Most high school teacher remember the students they mentored to college, but Paul August, an English teacher at Oakland High School, keeps track of those who will never graduate because they have died as victims of violent crime.

August has been teaching at Oakland High for 14 years, in that time 21 of his students have died, 14 killed with guns. August has a list of names scribbled on a yellow legal pad; the descriptions are simple.

“4. James Valentine, July 6, 1991, shot and killed… 10. Amy Sy August 25, 1994, murder-strangle.”

Number 20 on his list is Abduhl Reece, a sixteen-year-old sophomore who was shot on May 5, 2002. Violence is not new to his students; the last four editions of the Aegis, the school newspaper, have featured a student death. When Reece died, the school had no memorial or moment of silence to acknowledge his death.

Ken Snowden, a senior, said he was surprised the administration did nothing remember his long time friend. “Maybe ’cause he walked the halls, maybe it’s because he didn’t go to class regularly. But regardless he’s still human hurt, he bleed, everything just like we do. And to me it was wrong for them not to even acknowledge him, in a way they should have.”

Some students hung butcher paper in a hallway, signing their names with messages for Reece. “I was a little shocked at some of the things said there,” said August. “One of them was, ‘I’ll see you soon.’ Another thing that was puzzling was, instead of Rest in Peace, it was ‘Rot in Peace.’”

When he asked students what the messages meant, they said those were jokes.

“It seemed like the type of gallows humor that you find with people that are faced with death on a daily basis,” August said.

Last year, 113 people were killed in Oakland when the city’s homicide rate reached a seven-year-high. This year the numbers are not much better. As of May 5th, 38 people have been killed, one more than a year ago on the same date.

The alarming trend coincides with a major budget crisis for the local school district as 21 of the roughly 100 teachers at Oakland High have been sent pink slips this year.

Snowden, who lost his brother to gun violence when he was five, says he doesn’t know if he will stay in Oakland after he graduates this May.

“I hope this community gets better because truthfully I want to raise my kids here,” reflects Snowden, “But if the situation continues then I won’t because I don’t want my kids to have to go through the same thing that I had to go through.”