News & Events

Great Hearts Academy - Student death

Description: School requested teams yesterday for death of a 7th grade boy who was a student there. Wendy and Tracy went yesterday. Wendy was there from 10:00-1:15pm. It went so well, they wanted teams back for today if possible. I went in the am and Beth Ells went this afternoon. For me, it was much less emotional than the teams experienced yesterday. Beth agreed with me. Wendy said the first 1/2 of her time the students were quite emotional. The students came in throughout the time and some played card games at the table with Counselors, some just sat around and petted Maxx... but no tears and seemed much more calm today. There were 4-5 Counselors available to talk with the students, but did not interact with too many that I saw. The students were however, quite happy to pet Maxx and that was great to see as always. 3 younger 4th graders came in for their reading time with the Librarian, and she told them they did not have to read today.... but they wanted to read to Maxx. So all three laid down beside him and read several Chapters from their reading book. It was really sweet. They said it was even a better day than "going on a field trip". I did lots of explaining on the difference between a Therapy Dog, and a HOPE Crisis response Dog to the Counselors as they had questions and wanted to know if we could come for Finals. I told them perhaps Therapy dogs would be able to do that. Overall visit went well, and the Staff and students were thankful and loved seeing the dogs.