TULSA, Okla. — Students at McLain High School will be returning to class on Thurday, six days after a shooting outside of the football stadium, which police said killed 17-year old Terron Yarbrough, and left another 17-year old student hospitalized.
Tulsa Police said a 9-year old girl and a 20-year woman were also treated at the hospital for gunshot wounds and released. During Tuesday’s press conference, Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Deborah Gist said the two were sisters.
Dr. Gist also also shared more about the life of Yarbrough that was tragically cut short last Friday. She read aloud a recollection of the young man’s life written by one of his teachers:
“Terron was absolutely brilliant, and incredibly talented in math and science,” she read, “he was balancing home and school with hard work in the construction industry, he was passionate about football and basketball, he loved his family so much, and his absence will be palpable.”
Support staff will be available and teachers have been briefed so that when students return to class on Thursday, they can talk to with someone if they need to following the shooting outside of Friday’s homecoming game at McLain High School.
Dr. Gist said they’re also making a number of changes in regards to security at the school in terms of working with teachers to make sure they know their current safety protocols, and addressing issues such as adjusting entry points.
The shooting, which Tulsa Police said remains under investigation, hospitalized another 17-year old McLain High School student who is expected to survive his injuries.
Moving forward, Dr. Gist said plans are in the works to stagger games.
“In addition to the existing campus police and security team members we had at the game, what we want to do is begin to stagger games in a more significant way than we have in the past,” Dr. Gist said, “That when scheduling is happening that we’re able to put more concentrated effort on fewer games at a time.”
According to Dr. Gist, there were three security professionals at the start of the game at McLain High School last Friday, and three additional security personnel who arrived later after one of the other games concluded.
Tuesday afternoon, FOX23 talked with a McLain mom whose two teens attend McLain High School. Tamala Mays said she has no second thoughts about sending her kids back to school this week.
“I don’t feel like what happened at McLain couldn’t happen at any other school, it was a football game,” Mays said, “now if someone had come into the school then I’d be like ‘ok yeah it’s a big problem,’ but that’s not what happened, it was a game.”
Tim Newton, Executive Director of the Dream Center, which has been open to students on Monday and Tuesday, said his biggest concern is actually for the students’ mental and physical well-being as not everybody has someone they trust to talk to about how they’re feeling.
This is also the second tragedy to strike McLain High School this fall. Last month a 16-year-old student, Terrell Colbert died, after Tulsa Police said he was handling a firearm and it accidentally went off.
The Tulsa Public School District has set up a hotline for students and or parents with safety or security concerns. You can dial 918-480-SAFE or just text 480SAFE and the call can remain anonymous.
Additionally, if you or your child needs mental health support, you can access around-the-clock crisis support free of charge by contacting:
- COPES: COPES is Tulsa’s community response mobile crisis unit and can provide support by phone directly from the safety and comfort of your home. You can call COPES at 918-744-4800.
- Crisis Text Line: You can also contact the crisis text support service by sending a text message to 741741.
©2022 Cox Media Group
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/BY5Q5EUP55A3NBU6AQNWFJQCO4.jpg)
Sign Up
