Oxford Community Schools

Dear Oxford School Community,

Honoring and celebrating the lives of our students who were lost on November 30 is one of great importance to all of us. I wanted to provide an update on our progress for remembering and honoring the lives of Hana, Justin, Madisyn, and Tate since our temporary memorial was physically removed from Oxford High School. A great deal of thought, listening, and consideration has factored into our approach and decisions to honor these four children. Oxford Community Schools and our community members will never forget the lives of these students.

As we look at ways to memorialize Hana, Justin, Madisyn, and Tate, I wanted to take a moment and share some information that we have learned from other schools that have faced a similar tragedy and mental health experts who specialize in trauma recovery. Their input and feedback have been invaluable, and I want to personally thank all who lent their expertise. During these discussions, a few themes have stood out:

• The location of the memorial must be chosen so that viewing or visiting is optional for students and staff so as not to negatively impact recovery of anyone. Also, the location should not prevent any student or staff member from utilizing any section of the building.
• A memorial that contains images of the victims tends to invoke a stronger emotional response from the viewer. Memorials that focus on abstract representations of the victim’s lives – hearts, names, initials, etc. – bring about a response without the strong emotions an image may cause.
• Other images such as team pictures or other everyday photos that contain the victims do not invoke the same emotion and are important to display.
• All the mental health experts consulted were adamant that a vote to determine the memorial location is not constructive or appropriate. Campaigning and other persuasive tactics do not lend themselves toward healing and instead may create additional emotional harm for those who are still healing from the tragedy. In addition, as one mental health expert phrased it, “What percentage or number of children are okay to negatively impact? You have to think of all of the children and a vote does not consider the impact the memorial has on everyone.”
• It is best to locate the memorial outside of the school to allow access at all times. None of the schools we have contacted have memorials inside of the school due to concerns about safety and the wellbeing of all students.
• Some memorials have not been located on school property at all, while some memorials have been located outside on school property.

Given this feedback and best practices, we are moving forward at this time with honoring Hana, Justin, Madisyn, and Tate with a banner in the gym and with a sign in the senior courtyard. These remembrances are meant to help with the grieving process of the OHS students and staff. To maintain security and safety of the building, the memorial in the senior courtyard will not be accessible to individuals who are not current students or staff.

The banner in the gym contains hearts and the names of Hana, Justin, Madisyn, and Tate. This banner was donated by the Jostens Company. It is a simple but striking banner that honors their memory.

The sign in the senior courtyard will contain a short remembrance from each of the families. All four families wrote the remembrance concerning their child. Due to the emotional impact of this memorial, it was difficult to decide on its location. After much thought and consideration, we selected the courtyard location because it is symbolically the heart of the school. This location allows students and staff the option of viewing the sign during the school day from either the senior window or the media center. In addition, students and staff will also have the option of visiting the remembrance in the courtyard through the access doors during the day. We will make sure the doors are unlocked each day and the path cleaned from snow in the winter. We are currently working to clean up the courtyards and to make them into areas for reflecting on Justin’s, Tate’s, Madisyn’s, and Hana’s lives.

These two remembrances are only a couple of the ways Oxford Community Schools will be honoring Hana, Justin, Madisyn, and Tate. We have designated November 30th, as “Wildcat Remembrance Day” and it will be a district-wide day of service. Students and staff will not have school but we will ask our school community to dedicate November 30th as a day of service in honor of Justin, Hana, Madisyn, and Tate. Our student leadership groups will look to incorporate charities or service projects designated by the four families into our efforts on November 30. We will be working on the details of these plans during the summer and the beginning of the next school year.

We are also planting four Cherry Blossom trees at the northeast section of the building. This area will be landscaped and irrigated to support these trees. There will also be four plaques dedicating a tree to each of the four children.  Please see the attached map of the design mock-ups of the banner, sign, and trees indicating where these remembrances will be located at Oxford High School.

Student leadership has conducted and will continue to conduct student spirit days to honor the four students during the school day. During spirit days, students are asked to wear favorite items of one of the four children as a way to honor them and bring them into the school day.

Additionally, Jostens generously donated beautiful memorial patches, an “O” with four hearts, exclusively for our OHS students and staff that are being handed out to OHS students and staff during lunch periods. 

Plans to remember our Wildcats have involved and will continue to involve student input.

Lastly, the school board will be creating a committee to decide the particulars of a permanent memorial in the near future. The suggested timeline is to begin sometime in the late summer/fall. This committee will decide the process for gathering student, staff, and community input on the design, layout and location of the memorial(s). It will also begin fundraising efforts to support the construction of the memorials. To share with you a frame of reference, many of the permanent memorials in other communities have taken several years to get started, let alone complete.

As I said at the beginning of this letter, Oxford Community Schools will not forget Hana, Justin, Madisyn, and Tate. All of us should honor the lives of these four students through our actions to serve our community going forward. This way the impact that these children had on our school community will carry on for others to follow.