By Kanika Cousine
In March 2025, 16-year-old Sincere Jazmin was fatally shot while seated at a bus stop in Jamaica, Queens, after stepping off his school bus. According to the New York Post, he ran into a nearby deli before collapsing and dying on-site. Just days later, a 16-year-old student at Lansdowne High School in Maryland was chased and fatally shot across the street from campus. CBS News Baltimore reported he collapsed while trying to run toward safety and later died from his injuries. Despite this trauma, his classmates were expected to return to class the very next day, with police and grief counselors present but instruction continuing as usual.
We do not build schools to hold grief. We build them to pretend it does not exist. Across America, especially in Black and Brown communities, students are asked to focus in classrooms while quietly enduring the weight of trauma. Some are grieving the loss of close friends. Some are navigating homelessness or poverty. Others struggle with depression or anxiety but have no language or support to express it. We call them “resilient,” but we really mean they are alone. And we cannot keep asking our young people to survive while giving them nothing to survive with.
As the founder of Journey of A Dreamer INC., I work with youth who are doing everything possible to stay in school and alive. One young man I mentored in the Bronx lost two friends to gun violence in the same year. When I asked if he had ever seen a therapist, he said, “I don’t have time to be weak.” But therapy is not a weakness– it is safety. It is justice. It is what we owe our students if we genuinely care about their lives.
The crisis is in the classroom
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide is now the second leading cause of death for young people aged 10 to 24 — a crisis that continues to grow, particularly among Black youth (CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023). Yet most schools treat therapy like an add-on, not a necessity. A single school counselor might be assigned to 400 students or more. In some schools, there is no dedicated mental health staff at all. This message is clear: you matter, but not enough to help.
We would never ask a student with a broken arm to carry the entire school day without accommodations. So why do we ask students with invisible wounds to push through and perform like nothing is wrong?
Trauma sits in the back of the classroom. It walks through metal detectors. It takes notes while grieving. And when we ignore it, we fail every student forced to carry it alone.
Healing should be part of the school day
Mental health support should not be something a student must request. It should be a core part of their education. What would it look like if every student had access to therapy like they had access to math or science?
Imagine if public schools offered weekly one-on-one therapy or group healing circles as part of the curriculum. Imagine classrooms where emotional literacy is taught alongside English. Imagine trauma-informed teachers who know how to respond when a student is in distress rather than punishing them for acting out.
This is not a radical vision. It is a necessary one. In communities where trauma is common, healing must be standard.
Schools must become spaces of safety, not silence
Many students spend more time in school than anywhere else. If that space is not emotionally safe, then we are failing them. I have seen youth drop out, not because they lacked intelligence or drive, but because no one ever stopped to ask how they were doing.
We expect students to prepare for their futures while ignoring what they carry in the present. We want them to focus on exams, but how can they concentrate when they are still mourning a friend who was killed just blocks from campus?
The truth is that we keep asking our kids to show up, to be strong, to achieve. But we are not showing up for them in return.
This is about justice
Access to therapy is not a privilege. It is a right. And in neighborhoods where youth are disproportionately impacted by violence, poverty, and systemic neglect, that right should be fiercely protected.
Education without healing is incomplete. It is unfair. It asks too much and gives too little.
We cannot keep asking our students to survive what we are unwilling to address. We cannot keep building schools that ignore the pain of sitting quietly in every row.
It is time to build a new kind of classroom. One where healing is expected. One where therapy is built in. One where students are not punished for their trauma but supported through it.
No child should have to walk into a classroom the day after losing a friend and pretend nothing happened.
Because grief deserves a seat in the room.
Because healing should be mandatory.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
Great Job Dana Peck & the Team @ AFRO American Newspapers Source link for sharing this story.
