Veteran educator of over 30 years, Willie F. Johnson, said the issue will improve when we as a community get better.
By Zacharia Washington
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Willie F. Johnson, the principal of eight years at South Oak Cliff High School and a veteran educator, holds a deep passion for working with at-risk youth.
Not a lot of people opt for a job in education, Johnson said, but being able to shape the potential and efficacy of the students as well as transform the community makes room for a greater impact.
“I like that type of work,” Johnson said. “I like working with kids at odds. I like working with communities that, based on statistics, have deficits.”
In early June, Johnson spoke to The Dallas Morning News about the education system, challenges youth of today face and the rise in violence among young people.
When asked about teen violence, after cheerfully discussing his passion for education and the younger generation, Johnson’s mood shifted. He grew more serious and his smile faded. “Oh wow,” he said.
Violence among teens and young people in Dallas is “definitely” an issue that needs to be addressed, Johnson said. It can start with the school system.
“We’ve lost a lot of our students to gun violence, and that’s the reason for our [SOC leaders’] push,” Johnson said. “If we can convince them that there’s another way, that there’s opportunities outside of what they grew up seeing — selling dope, doing all those things … that’s our job.”
Teen violence prevention
Johnson described himself as an “old country boy,” originally from East Texas. Both of his parents were educators — Johnson’s dad was a principal and his mom was a teacher.
Though he’s not a Dallas native, Johnson said he’s been in the city for over 30 years now. He moved in 1992, the same year he began his career in education.
In recent years, Johnson said he’s noticed a rise in violence amongst the teens in the city, and SOC has lost students to violence. This has led him to place more of an emphasis on mentorship and academic focused programs at the school.
Shifting the students’ minds off what they grew up seeing — violence, selling drugs, etc. — to other opportunities, such as academics, mentorship and sports, could be one of the solutions to lowering crime rates, according to Johnson. He said the biggest thing is making sure they’re successful in schools.
“If we do a better job in schools, that will kind of curb a lot of the violence, as well as reduce some of the percentages,” he said.
It’s an opportunity gap, Johnson continued. He said the community and schools should focus on creating more opportunities for young people, which can also help to prevent teen violence.
“Our job is to create relationships, create mentorships, to show them there’s opportunities — there’s various ways that you can be successful,” Johnson said. “I think that’s where we fail.”
What we can learn from Wilmer-Hutchins
In April, a shooting took place at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in Dallas.
Four students suffered gunshot wounds, and an educator was grazed “on the right side of her face, inches away from her right eye,” a Dallas ISD police officer wrote in an arrest-warrant affidavit for suspect Tracey Haynes Jr.
Johnson said when he found out about what happened at Wilmer-Hutchins, he took it personally.
“I take it personal, like, what could I have done as a leader,” he said. “You never want nothing like that to happen at a place or a school that’s designed for safety. This is supposed to be a safe place.”
Johnson believes that one thing that could’ve been done to prevent a situation like Wilmer-Hutchins from happening is to identify who else is involved, especially when it comes to gangs or cliques.
Haynes’ defense attorney Temani Adams said Haynes’ aunt — whom other outlets have identified as Cassandra Griffin — testified during a bond reduction hearing in April.
Griffin said Haynes informed her about a group of men who were part of a violent gang and kept telling her “they’re going to kill me,” Adams previously told The News. She said the family also had been receiving threats from that group.
Allegedly, one of the students who was shot during the incident was a part of the gang, Adams said.
“Although two or three were identified, who are the other participants?” Johnson said. “We can eliminate that if we can get the right personnel involved — whether it’s clinicians, whether it’s police officers, whomever. We get them involved proactively, we can work that out before something like that happens.”
He added that measures are being taken every day at SOC to reduce the chances of violence happening inside of school walls. Measures like walking the campus’ perimeters often, searching students and having personnel monitoring all major access points.
It’s an everyday job, he said.
‘It’ll get better’
The youth in the city today are facing many challenges, Johnson said, from homelessness, to food insecurity, to the experiences they have in their upbringings. These types of problems can cause young people to turn to violence, but Johnson said it’s all about mindset.
And how can you change their mindsets, he added.
There are a lot of resources both inside and outside of the school system. Johnson said Dallas ISD has counselors and mental health clinicians available to the students, and SOC specifically has an in-house food pantry. He said the school has clothing, nonperishable food items and computers, so people can look for jobs.
But Johnson believes the violence among teens can and will get better.
“It’ll get better when we get better. I think when parents get better. I think when the educators get better,” Johnson said. “I think it can get better, because it’s a mindset.”
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login