Photos of Shawn Jackson, smiling proudly as he accepts his diploma on the Altria Theater stage, are hard to look at knowing that just minutes later the 18-year old would lay outside the downtown theater gasping for breath before dying from gunshot wounds.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said he has not read the recently released investigation report into RPS' handling of the circumstances surrounding a deadly shooting outside a graduation last year.
Criticism of Richmond Public Schools is valid, given chronic student underachievement. But for an institution held in such low regard, we expect miracles. We ve funneled into RPS all of the neglect that festers outside the school building — poverty, family dysfunction, hunger, housing insecurity and neighborhood violence.
An 18-year-old student fatally shot last year after his high school graduation in Virginia had been kept home for months because of fears for his safety