I remember my first day as a student at Huguenot High School, walking into the building with a slight shakiness. I knew I had to step correct. The Huguenot of the late 1990s was a storied place in Richmond.

This was the Huguenot of Coach Richard McFee’s victorious Falcons football team. It was the home of Coach Bo Jones’ legendary basketball machine. Then, there was Hugo Jackson, James Carver and Diane Bacon’s highly lauded music department. Everything I knew about Huguenot was excellent.

The late 1990s were years of historic violence in the city. The proliferation of drugs and weapons trafficking was at a historic high. National news outlets heralded Richmond as the second deadliest city per capita in the United States. In

1994 – my freshman year at Huguenot – Richmond had 161 murders in the city. It wasn’t until my senior year that the homicide rate receded below 100 killings per year.

As excellent as Huguenot was in my eyes, our high school was not unaffected by the tragedy that was so commonplace back then. Shootouts at football games were so frequent that our marching band began practicing how to slide between the bleachers for safety at night games. I remember K9 Units sauntering through the hallways of our school as various kinds of contraband dropped past the lower-level windows of our school from open windows above us. We lost several friends and classmates to violence during the time I was in school

What strikes me the most looking back at my high school experience and the context of all that was happening in our community is the stance of the educators who showed up every day to teach us. I remember teachers who showed us love through their determination to demand excellence from us. I remember teachers like Maxine Jenkins, Marvin Jones and Chelsea White. I remember leaders like our principals, Carlton Stevens and Dr. William Cumbo; counselors like Beverly Mountain, Zimora Scott and Melvin Crenshaw.

I remember these educators had the highest of expectations from us. They knew the ugliness of the world around us better than we did. They’d faced ugliness too, and they knew that the only way to transcend the gloom is to rise above it.

Many of these teachers had faced segregation, Massive Resistance and poverty that most of us in their classrooms could never have imagined. Maybe that’s why they held such high expectations. They overcame incredible challenges and knew what it took to overcome.

Whatever it was, the teachers I had at Huguenot expected the best out of us. There were no excuses. We were expected to do our best. Period.

As May comes to a close, I cannot help but think about Huguenot and the tragedy that happened at Huguenot’s graduation in 2023. I cannot help but remember the horrible shockwave that ran through our city. I remember the pall of sadness that hung over all of us during a time that should have been full of joyous celebration.

That feeling of despondency seems to be pervasive in our city these days. As I listen to some of our leaders in RPS, I find myself concerned that we have allowed ourselves to cede ground to a certain kind of hollow hopelessness. All too often it sounds like we’ve decided to settle into the status quo because the challenges before us are too great. This concerns me greatly.

Our children are the future of this beautiful city. We owe it to them to create an environment that lifts their gaze above the malaise of hopelessness. We owe it to them to create an environment that does better by them so we can expect excellence from them. We begin by demanding better from our leaders.

It’s an election year. School Board candidates will be declaring their intentions to run by June 18, 2024. This year, let’s demand all of our candidates hold high expectations for our system because they know kids can learn and be successful when our administrators and teachers insist they do.

The writer is an education advocate, the former CEO for Richmond Prep and an alum of Huguenot High School.