Going above the call of duty is synonymous with being a teacher.
We don’t do it for teacher-of-the-year awards. They only collect dust. We don’t do it for extra pay. That will never happen. We do it because our teacher hearts won’t let us do anything else.
This sums up speech teacher Laurie Nanni perfectly. She works at Sue Morrow Elementary School in Henderson, NV, where I teach kindergarten in an adjacent classroom. Back in 2004 when she was teaching second grade, a brown-eyed boy with a contagious spirit that could illuminate the room walked into her classroom.
His name was Quinton Robbins, and though Laurie loved all her students, she had a special bond with him that would last a lifetime.
Laurie remembers Quinton in second grade.
When your teacher heart gets shattered.
On October 1, 2017, my Las Vegas community was completely shaken to its very core. In one of the worst mass shootings in US history, a shooter opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest Festival, from a suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, killing 58 people. Quinton Robbins, age 20, was one of the victims.
Days after the tragedy, I could hear Laurie’s guttural sobs of anguish through the walls of my classroom.