Thursday Sep 25, 2025
CC#77: Tragedy and the Role of Principal w/ Principal Tom Simmons - El Dorado MS
Content Warning: This episode discusses the topic of suicide and digital blackmail targeting teens. Listener discretion is advised.
Episode Summary
In this episode of Cool Coffee, host Rick Sola speaks with Tom Simmons, principal of El Dorado Middle School in USD 490, about the challenges faced by principals, particularly in the wake of a tragic event involving a student. Tom shares insights on navigating communication with the community, supporting students and staff, and the importance of mental health awareness. The discussion emphasizes the need for proactive measures in addressing issues like sextortion and suicide prevention, while also reflecting on the personal toll such events take on school leaders. Tom highlights the strength of the El Dorado community and the supportive environment fostered within the school.
Connect with Principal Simmons
Chapters (timestamp does not account for intro--add 39 seconds)
00:00 Introduction to Tom Simmons and His Journey
05:58 The Impact of a Tragic Event
11:21 Navigating Communication and Community Response
17:16 Support Systems for Students and Staff
22:26 Reflections on Personal Well-being and Leadership
28:59 Looking Ahead: Preventative Measures and Awareness
35:34 Closing Thoughts and Community Strength
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT (timestamp does not account for intro--add 39 seconds)
Content Warning: Please note this episode discusses the topic of suicide and digital blackmail targeting teens. Listener discretion is advised.
Rick Sola (00:01.77)
Hello and welcome to Cool Coffee with Kansas principals. Today I'm joined by Mr. Tom Simmons, principal of El Dorado Middle School in El Dorado, Kansas. Welcome Tom.
Tom Simmons (00:13.518)
Thank you, glad to be here.
Rick Sola (00:15.754)
Yeah, I'm really excited to have you here and recently learned you guys are the Wildcats as well. So from one Wildcat to another welcome both at my school, but also I don't know if you're not a K-State Wildcat, I don't think, are you? you are, you are, okay. Well, there we go. Wildcat squared here for both of us.
Tom Simmons (00:28.204)
I am.
Tom Simmons (00:33.166)
I'm a chocker, I'm a wildcat, I'm a jet. I'm a multiple of those, but I probably hone in more to the wildcats. I've enjoyed my time there, so.
Rick Sola (00:42.262)
Well, that's awesome. I hope our K-State Wildcats can get it done, get it going here this season. before we get going, just a quick plug out for the show. For all listeners, your feedback is important to us and we would love to hear from you. So please check the show notes for a way to leave feedback or even contact me directly with topics or guest ideas. Also, if you're so inclined, give us a like, give us a follow on your favorite podcast platform and help spread the word on the amazing principles.
we have right here in the state of Kansas. And I am really excited, Tom, to have you here today, just to learn more about you, learn more about El Dorado, but talk about a really important and just a really important topic that we'll get to here in a bit. But the show, we always kick off with just a road to the chair that you're in right now. So where did you come from to end up where you're at right now?
Tom Simmons (01:40.6)
Well, I grew up in Western Kansas in Garden City. I'm probably be like a lot of principals. I didn't have that traditional route to this chair. I started out in athletic training. All my friends were football players, but they were
of the size needed to play football. It was the smallest kid in the school, so I got picked on a lot. So I became an athletic trainer and one of the coaches said, hey, you could you can be our trainer. I said, what's that? And they sent me off to Emporia State over the summers, learned how to tape ankles and then ended up getting some scholarships to Garden City Community College and then ended up working for K-State football and many sports at K-State through my time. And then ended up just meeting the right people and ended up working my way into the NFL and was an athletic trainer for the Philadelphia Eagles. And so
nice transition and you know, it's nice because people talk about how much Principals work I got there July 4th my first day off was Christmas and kind of working sunup to sundown lots of hours and so not that this is any easier But it's definitely a little bit at least I have a home I guess so I've been in education about 22 years This is my third year here at El Dorado Middle School as the principal this was my first principal job my wife has been a principal for years and then finally Talked to me and as they always joke to go to the dark side and so
joined this side a little bit. So I really enjoyed it. I love doing this.
Rick Sola (03:01.642)
That is funny that the dark side reference is alive and well even here, you where I'm at too. And I remember getting into it and, know, Rick, you sure you're ready to go to the dark side, as I say. you know, but now there's a lot of, a lot of positive there. I bet there's a lot of parallels with you mentioned, I mean, just the hours of being a athletic trainer with the Eagles. But I imagine there's some parallels there with what you're doing now, at least in hours put in.
Tom Simmons (03:28.27)
Absolutely, and what's nice to have that background is I have a student walk in here and say they want to be a professional athlete or they want to do something. Not that I was a professional athlete, but I got to see professional athletes and I know the work ethic it's going to take. And so I've had those conversations with kids sitting across my desk and they're like, well, I want to do this. Well, know, sitting in my office is not going to get you there. You're going to have to change your attitude. You're have to change your work ethic. And so having those real conversations helps. And, you know, it's nice because
Up here above my desk, have a picture of the team that I was a part of. And then I have a game ball that we earned for the year that I worked there. And I think I was taught a lot of experiential learning opportunities during that year that the guy didn't tell us a lot what to do. You had to learn it yourself. So in my years of teaching, I kind of taught that same way. And I'm trying to instill that in the teachers here too, that giving kids an opportunity to learn by trying and failing and failing forward is just an acronym I use a lot here that I want them to learn from that failure.
Rick Sola (04:24.278)
What a unique perspective that you bring to the principal chair as far as really working with a group of athletes at the very top of their game, that game, being in the NFL and to be able to even have those conversations with kids. Like you said, maybe you weren't the NFL player yourself, but you saw those players and what it took to come in. So I'll put you on the spot. mean, the Chiefs are playing the Eagles this weekend. Is there one team over the other?
Tom Simmons (04:51.148)
You know, it's, it's really hard because, you know, I grew up in Kansas, so I grew up a chiefs fan, but when you go to get a job in the NFL, you don't get to go, well, I want to be with the chiefs. And so I applied to the chiefs. I applied during that year, all 26 NFL teams and ended up at the Eagles and ended up being a great thing. it was funny cause last year Superbowl, they, my staff were all chiefs fans and over our music, they would play the red kingdom song and they were heckling me and they
I was gone for one of the days and I came back, my whole office was chiefs, everything. They had covered up my helmet, my game ball, my picture, they trashed it. And I relished in that for a few days when we came back after the win and I just left that up and then they came in and took it down because they were mad.
Rick Sola (05:29.114)
well, I'm a strong Chiefs fan, but I can I can appreciate the humor in that. And I love the school culture aspect of that. That's that's so school culture there where you've got the for us, it's the KUK state rivalry out here. And but no, that's great. I think you have a case to to be had on the New Heights podcast with the Kelsey brothers.
Tom Simmons (05:52.59)
There you go. That was before my time. had a, you know, I was back in 1988 and I had Reggie White, Randall Cunningham. We were two games from the Super Bowl and I was blessed to have been a part of a lot of games that, you know, I was part of what's called the Fog Bowl. We lost to the Chicago Bears in the fog in a game and just some games that, you know, not every game do you get to go back and you can go to YouTube and there's one of your games that was just a nostalgic, really kind of cool game that you were a part of. And so those are some fun times to think. And again, to be able to share those with the students to know that
It is capable or I have a young man that's not that great of an athlete. Have you thought about being a trainer or manager on a team? said that you can go a long ways with those things. It's not always about always being the greatest athlete.
Rick Sola (06:32.298)
Yeah, no, that's really a great story. I bet students are probably really fascinated with that, especially throw up a few highlight reels of that time. You just named a few greats there. so we're recording this. It's Friday. It's September 12th here where I'm at. This is kind of we call it like Awareness Week Suicide Prevention Week. And so it's fitting to be having this conversation here with you today. And, you know, it's a topic that
Tom Simmons (06:41.973)
Absolutely.
Rick Sola (07:01.682)
is unfortunately, I think, just all the more relevant in our schools. And I myself have worked as a principal through some very challenging situations.
in the community and even in the school that I have been in and that I'm at and so forth. And that's really what brings you on here today is working through a really tough situation in your community right at the start of summer. so first, before we kind of get into that, I want to thank you for being willing to come on here because I think there's so much value to hearing from other principals who may have gone through any challenging situation.
but something so sensitive as suicide is one that I don't know that we ever feel fully equipped to handle. And so thank you in advance for being willing to come on here, but we'll just start with.
Back at the beginning of summer, you received a phone call. We'll just kind of start with that and then kind of move through the process that you, your community and so forth went through back in June.
Tom Simmons (08:17.164)
Well, I'm a 12-month contract, so we work all year. It was one of those weird things where I was sick over the summer, so I had taken a sick day and I got a text message from my superintendent to give him a call about a situation with a student, which I thought was odd at the time. like, we're in summer. When I reached out to him, I was told that one of my students had had an accidental gun discharge, I think was the words that were used. And so then we were thinking a student was playing with a gun.
You know, kind of woke up from being sick to what do need to start planning? What do I need to start doing for the school? Reached out to a bunch of people around the building, my counselors and everything else. Over the summer we have summer waits, we have summer school, we have all these things, we have summer camps. So we knew those students were going to need some resources and some things set up. So immediately started to work towards planning those things, working with the superintendents, assistant superintendent, like I said, my counselors and lots of different people.
to organize that. The next day we had set up some grief counseling at our high school where most of our camps and summer weights program goes on. And we were there for our students to be able to come in and talk with the counselors, myself and other people. I guess I was surprised by how many parents wanted to talk to us about how to talk to their children. So if I've walked away from anything with this is that a lot of these parents do not know how to talk to their children.
it was spreading on social media and everything else, but they were asking, how do we talk to our kids about this sensitive subject? My student didn't want to come to the building and talk to you, so I came over. How do I go home and explain what's going on? And so that made it little bit more difficult. As the day kind of went on, the narrative kind of switched a little bit. We were called in by the chief of police to discuss kind of what was going on. And as the day went on, we found out more facts.
We found out that my student was a.
Tom Simmons (10:16.59)
he got into a sextortion with some people online. He began chatting with someone and the family were blessed with that in the sense that they've been very open about this because they would not want this to happen to any other child. So they've been pretty open about the whole situation. But in that sextortion, unfortunately, the young man had sent some incriminating pictures out to this person. The horrifying part that probably kind of gives me chills a little bit is
That part of this extortion was 35 minutes, I think is what the mother talks about. So from start to finish of 35 minutes of them antagonizing him and making him feel uncomfortable before he took his life is just kind of an unfortunate situation. So that time span happened pretty quickly. Being able to work with the community and setting up resources and talking to kids and parents, that went on for quite a few days. So.
Rick Sola (11:10.974)
Yeah, you know, going back a little bit, you reference social media and I would say with any really urgent and challenging situation where you know you've got to be proactive with communication and get communication out, what I have found, unfortunately, over and over is that social media and that word of mouth moves way faster than we're able to move.
How did you combat that and how did you feel you were able to get that communication out? Did you feel like it was timely in hindsight or how did you kind of balance that?
Tom Simmons (11:48.16)
Well, we did balance it. think we did the best we could. Some of it was such an unknown, know, starting out from having one thing what we thought it was, and then just as the time went, the narrative kept changing to, ended up being this extortion, which changed the narrative and made it, I don't want to say easier for the parents to talk to their children, but it opened some avenues for parents to be able to talk to their children. I don't think we got ahead of the social media.
But we stayed ahead of what narrative we could. We spoke on what we could, spent a lot of time reviewing board policies and what we were going to be able to do in the after effects of this, knowing our board policy doesn't allow us to have memorials or other things or remembrances and some of those. And I know every district's a little bit different, but trying to get out in front of that a little bit so that we could plan for some things. here we are in September and this happened in midsummer, middle of summer. We're still dealing with that. I still have.
people reaching out constantly that want to do things that go against board policy. And we have to say, I'm sorry, I can't do that. That probably is the the hard part of this is that you know, it's what their heart is in the right place to want to do something, but then it breaks the board policy and we can't do that. you know, having a moment of silence at a football game, having a picture of them up, putting them on the back of T-shirts. We've had a little bit of, I've been hit up with a lot of different things and they have to say no. And then
I don't think they understand the reasoning by it because it's a sensitive topic. mean, it's hard to talk about here, but to bring those topics up, and it's not that it automatically makes somebody want to commit suicide, but it continues to bring things up. And I was talking to the counselor today and I asked him if he felt that this year was worse than the past few, and he said, by far. We've had a lot more kids either talking about it, we've had some other, you
nerve-racking things happen. He said he's had a lot more kids that are willing to talk about it, that they will come up and say, hey, I'm not feeling right today. I think I really need to talk to somebody. So there's kind of two sides to this. We've had a lot more people that are having those suicidal thoughts, but we've had a lot of people that now know that they can reach out to a counselor. So we're on the right track with doing those things.
Rick Sola (14:02.003)
Yeah, I used the word balance a minute ago and that's how I have felt with it before balancing, providing information, providing supports and resources while also there are some kids that are kind of teetering a little bit anyway perhaps, even perhaps before this and then how they respond to it. Every student responds differently when they hear this, hear the information and so forth.
To go back to earlier, you said you received that phone call and just kind of processing through it, who were those first contacts that you felt you needed to make that time in June? And I know you're on contract. I'm not sure who others were off contract. Who were those first points of contact that needed to be looped in?
Tom Simmons (14:50.644)
reached out to my assistant principal. We talked for quite a while about what was going on, reached out to my counselors, started to organize that. Again, I wasn't feeling the best, so it made it more difficult to kind of get your head wrapped around things. Had a pretty massive sinus infection, so I was trying to work through that, but it was kind of weird. You felt like you needed medication, but nothing really mattered. You kind of knew what you needed to do. That being said, reaching out to the superintendent, continuing trying to organize.
Kind of like what you said, trying to get ahead of some things. We knew we were having weights the next day. We knew we were having camps the next day. We knew we were having summer school. having people there, I went up to summer school and kind of walked around the room and you had some kids talking about where they going to the funeral, what was going on. And amazingly enough, it's a middle school. So you have another kid going, who died? And so it's kind of one of those weird things that some kids weren't even aware.
having us there and telling them to come down to we had at the lunchroom at our high school. It's a big area where people could gather. Once we started to get some students there, I think it helped them just kind of gather and just talk. So, you know, I spent quite a bit of time trying to get resources put together, different people. Didn't really get to use some of these people over the summer, but we have since used those resources. We have South Central Mental Health in our building.
that does case management with students. So that's been a great help to have them in the building to be able to talk to students. We have an organization that I don't know if you're familiar with called Spark Wheel. And Spark Wheel is an outside organization that, and you can kind of think of Spark Wheel maybe as a hub that brings all the right spokes together. They can bring you tutoring, mentoring, counseling, connecting families with community services. So if you need something, you know, your electricity gets shut off, your kid needs glasses and you don't have the funds. They're a great organization that they
They bring people in and help with that. So we've utilized them this year for being able to do that. They provide grade checks with students. So they have something a little bit different than what I get to do.
Rick Sola (16:57.797)
Yeah, going back to the communication piece, know, some of it is social media and the chatter can go really quick, but it also takes off and it goes in directions that start potentially could start to get inaccurate information or assumptions or jumping to conclusions. And it's such a and then there's the challenge as well. You've got to be, you know, we're using the word sensitive, but there are certain things that.
Tom Simmons (17:14.264)
Good job with that.
Rick Sola (17:24.711)
ultimately they can't be shared or it's not appropriate or you're working with the families and there's all sorts of things to consider. And meanwhile, behind you, all these things are moving so fast and forward. just adds to that challenging situation. You talked about the memorials and think, how did, do you feel like your community kind of grew to understand?
the board policy that is in place and why. Because like I said, I've been there and I know those are really hard conversations when all people want to do in that moment is help and they feel like this is how I can help. And when they get a roadblock, that's challenging, that's tough.
Tom Simmons (18:09.166)
I don't think everybody understands that sometimes it's not that I'm not wanting to do that. I've got a board policy that I have to follow. And one of the first things that happened is my, student was an eighth grader. And so they wanted to put his name and his football number on the back of the eighth grade promotion shirts. And I don't think they realized that maybe not every parent would want that on the back of the shirt. And so to get people to understand, I get what you're trying to do. It is honorable. It's a great honor to that student. However,
it's difficult because you're going to have to find the narrative that you're going to print shirts and you're have some that have it, some that don't. Now it makes this person look like they're not supporting that and back and forth. so having that, having just the board policies, understanding that we can't have a memorial, we can't do a moment of silence, we can't have, you know, or the coaches can't start that memorial or start that, you know, prayer at football or, you know, go out and have numbers printed so they can put it on their helmets. All those things were
things that we've been navigating, still navigating today.
Rick Sola (19:12.265)
Well, I wanted to ask just about the start of the year, you talked about how you initially heard the information and how the story changed or updated as far as this being a sextortion related situation.
What have you done at the start of this school year where it still feels like we're fairly new in the year? And I know having had some conversations with you earlier that there were some just really intentional things that needed to be considered and thought through. How did the start of the year as far as this topic goes begin with at El Dorado?
Tom Simmons (19:53.25)
Well, I want to back up just a little bit and something that you'd asked me how that day started or whatever. When I got back to school the next day, I was on my computer and I had put out some, I guess, a personal message on my Facebook, which I don't put out very much on my Facebook. And it was more for my family and my cousins, my nieces, my nephews, all these different people to kind of watch who you're chatting with, to be careful. Social media is kind of this place that sometimes parents go, they're fine. They're on roadblocks. fine. They're on.
And the more I've been around this, I realized some of these things that we think are fine are not. Anyway, I posted this out to social media and it got picked up by some different SROs and some different people. And a gentleman named Ben Tracy had reached out to me and he is a speaker who goes out and talks about sextortion, extortion, and just basically the bad things of social media. And he had ran across the United States last year to try to raise awareness of this. And probably the...
One of the heart wrenching things for me was that he had sent me an email asking him to come speak at my school, but I ignored that email. And so that kind of was one of those things. And him and I have had a conversation and he wasn't gearing that towards me because he said, I probably get a lot of crazy people that, know, hey, come talk to my school. And he goes, and this guy's running across the United States. And he said a lot of people didn't even think he would make it. That being said, we've been in contact with him trying to have him come speak at our school. He's gonna come in the spring.
He brings in lots of resources, different resources. In the meantime, working up to that, this next week we have a town hall meeting for our parents on the 24th. The FBI is gonna come and talk to our students about sextortion, extortion, internet safety, social media. We're gonna have that town hall meeting for the parents and then during the day, the high school, they're gonna come in and talk to our high school students in the morning. And then in the afternoon, they're gonna come talk to the middle school.
The FBI kind of feels like right now that El Dorado is kind of being targeted just a little bit. So they're wanting to kind of get ahead of this a little bit. And so they're going to talk about how to protect your children, what they do, what they do in that situation. they've done something that they feel like they can't get themselves out of, what do they do? And I was talking to one of my SROs at the high school last week and he was on
Tom Simmons (22:14.282)
online with someone chatting that was trying to extort money out of them and they were chatting with them. And so it's not something that was like a one-time deal for us, which you would think. typical of any of the communities that anybody would listen to this, everybody's thinking, it's not going to happen in my town. And everybody that we've talked to said, well, nobody thought it would happen in El Dorado. And not only did it happen in El Dorado, it feels like it's continuing to happen because they continue to target our community and continue to target our students. And so that's that part of trying to get ahead of those things.
setting up these town hall meetings, having our counselors talk about who the trusted adults are, who can you talk to. I know you messed up, it might be embarrassing, but come talk to us and there's a way out of this.
Rick Sola (22:57.085)
Yeah. What a, I mean, a very, very important mission that he's on and what a great resource to tap into. you, you, you, you reference that email you got that you didn't respond to and, know, you know, we get countless numbers of emails daily. But that's one thing that I have found, you know, several times in these situations. And that's part of
Tom Simmons (23:13.752)
Thanks.
Rick Sola (23:22.097)
I call it the kind of the wake of these situations, but is the second guessing that goes on with everybody and the what ifs and what if I had only fill in the blank. And as a building principle, I appreciate you sharing that out loud because I feel like that's a really a very real part of these tragic situations is everybody's questioning what they could have done. And as a building principle, as a leader, we're conditioned to lead and to be successful and to
Fixed problems and all those sayings and it's I don't know all the more weight that we get on our shoulders as a result of that so
Tom Simmons (24:00.266)
Absolutely. You know, when he sent, when I saw it on social media, he had posted to somebody else that he had reached out to the school and they didn't respond. I'm like, what? So I went to my email and I did a search back through my Google email and all of a here this email pops up. And like I said, my heart kind of sank just a little bit like the what ifs kind of come up. know, my counselors are saying the same thing. What other things could we have done? Should we have done more? Could we have done more? And so I think a lot of that is going through my whole staff is, you know, what could we have done more?
I know the family probably feels the same way of what could we do to try to protect these students. So now moving forward, that's kind of that plan of having the town hall meeting, having Ben Tracy and some people come speak next in the spring, us making sure that we're available to students if they're struggling, if they need something. So as I've said, we've kind of had that uptick of kids who are either talking about suicide, having suicide thoughts, or just knowing that they need to go to talk to somebody about it is.
is kind of, there's good signs that I know that they feel like there's trusted adults here that they can come talk to.
Rick Sola (25:04.497)
You just mentioned your staff and you know with this happening over the summer, how did you take care of your staff or how did you kind of reach out? mean that's a, know there could be staff all over the place at that point because they're on their summer vacation.
Tom Simmons (25:19.572)
Absolutely. And so we reached out, you know, sent some text messages to the staff of what was going on. Our district sent out a message that did something that happened to a student. And again, with social media in the world, it spread pretty quickly. Once it came time for the funeral, so many of the staff members stepped up. And I think that was kind of eye opening for the family, just a little bit of how many people came to support the family during that time. Something I did not allude to is the family was reaching out to
ask for certain things. They wanted a football jersey. They wanted a wrestling jersey, a wrestling singlet, and some different things that they could have for him during that time. And so again, to navigate through that, it's not as simple as just going, hey, here's a jersey. We had to work through some policy situations. What can we do with this? And we made the decision even as football season started.
we've retired his number for a few years. Because we had a lot of kids stepping up going, hey, I really want to wear his number and represent him. Well, then who do you pick? And so we felt it was best to kind of retire his number for a few years. The other part that I really didn't talk about that's been a little bit more difficult to navigate is he has two brothers here. And so now when I'm doing this town hall meeting and I'm doing all of these different things, not only you're trying to help your staff, but you have
a couple of brothers here and so making certain that the family understands, making certain those students understand that we're trying to support them. And I think they have felt that way. Like I said, the family has been pretty open about this, that they never want this to happen to anybody else's family. But it still is, again, a sensitive topic that makes it even more sensitive when the brothers are here.
Rick Sola (27:06.975)
Yeah. And I was kind of thinking as a follow-up to the taking care of staff, but just taking care of the family. And you really kind of nailed it with that, but you're working so closely with the family in really the worst time of their life and just the emotions that play into that. And like you said, there's policy, there's emotions, and there's all those things that are wrapped in there. How...
how do you take care of yourself as a principal at that point too? Because I use this phrase sometimes here, we're not robots and the emotions are very real. Oftentimes it's like that duck on a pond where we kind of present perhaps a certain way, but you're moving and there's things that are going in the back of your mind that you know you need to take care of. You need to communicate, you need to make a contact. How do you take care of yourself through all of this?
Tom Simmons (28:03.658)
You know, I think we started this conversation about about me being an athletic trainer and I think that training helped me a bunch. Being presented in emergency situations, something goes on with somebody and you just you snap and you go and you take care of things. And I think that part has helped me. I'm probably not very good at taking care of myself, just like a lot of other principles. You know, I I take care what I need to take care of and I probably worry less about myself and worry more about others in that situation. I think.
reaching out to my counselors, because I know this was really hard on them and making sure that they felt like they were okay. And just even the staff, if staff, I talked about, and I probably didn't allude very good to that, but we had resources there for students, we had resources there for families, but we also had, if the staff needed to come in and talk, we had those resources available for them also. The following day, after all that happened, and I went back to work, the superintendent had asked me to reach out to the family and let them know.
what supports they needed from us. as you can imagine, that was a pretty difficult phone call. The family's divorced, unfortunately that made it two phone calls instead of one. So to call one family and they were very appreciative of everything we were trying to offer and we were just trying to offer what support we could. And that's when they started asking about jerseys and singlets and different things as they were making their plans. But that conversation's never easy for everyone. But again, it's part of the job when you sit in this chair to know in the end.
It's nice that you know you were trying to help that family. And I kind of waffled from your question, but I'm not good at taking care of myself, I guess in that sense.
Rick Sola (29:35.734)
Well, you you're probably hitting the nail on the head for a lot of principals where, know, again, we're conditioned to be focused on our building, our kids, our staff and others. But, you know, there are times it's hard. You're going to bring that home. You know, you don't just shut the door and walk home and everything goes away. And so, yeah, I think that's an important piece. But I would agree with you. I don't I don't know that I would have an answer to.
How do you do that? In part, kind of speaking just for myself, the taking care of yourself is just keep moving forward, keep going and just, you know, in working through that. You kind of mentioned this or alluded to it as just the number of things that come up that aren't anticipated or unpredictable, like the football jersey you mentioned. It makes total sense, but I don't know that in the moment that that's going to be something that would immediately
come to mind as, but that's an important topic and that needs to be handled very sensitively and very, very thoughtfully with, you know, for the, for really the emotions of all those who are still around. And so I thought that was just a, just a one of many examples. Yeah.
Tom Simmons (30:49.824)
Absolutely.
Tom Simmons (30:54.806)
We were blessed in the sense that the jerseys that we had, we had a new set of jerseys coming through the next year, so we got new uniforms. So it wasn't as hard as of a thing to be able to do to say, okay, we can give you the jersey and the singlet the same way. We didn't have new uniforms, but to give them that singlet, we just made some exceptions and took care of things and made sure that family felt that the school supported them during that time of need.
Rick Sola (31:22.493)
Have you had any, now that this is a kind of a conversation at the forefront, have you had any successes where you feel like some students have come forward and kind of feeling like, I'm glad we have put some of these things now in place to where it's kind of opened up, it's kind of taking the lid off things and yeah, maybe it's an embarrassing conversation or, but maybe it's steered a student toward making.
a positive decision rather than the ultimate decision.
Tom Simmons (31:53.41)
I alluded to that earlier where I think we have quite a few students who had come to the counselors and even Spark Wheel and our South Central Mental Health. Those people I think are getting more of those kids coming to them and opening up a little bit because maybe not about extortion but just knowing that maybe they're not hitting down the right path and want to talk and say, hey, some of the choices I'm making aren't the greatest. I think I need somebody to talk to. And we've had quite a few of those situations. And again, they're not easy conversations for the kid. They're not easy conversations for the counselors.
conversations that definitely need to happen so that moving forward that we're making positive choices for our students in the building.
Rick Sola (32:30.069)
Where do you feel have been, you you talked about having been Tracy in and really it sounds like a very intentional kind of plan of action, if you will, methodical of getting some information to families and students and as far as moving forward and, you know, I'm not sure when your start date was for the school year, but we're kind of at the beginning of the school year. But just like you said, you're still navigating through some things.
How do you how do you see that the next you know month or two or up to the holidays? Kind of going as far as some of the kind of routine Normal school year things that are going to present themselves like the football season and all the normal fall activities Maybe a performance and things like that
Tom Simmons (33:17.09)
So again, some of those things were hard to navigate that first football game. I got to the football game, we had to be very upfront with our coaches. You couldn't have any memorials, you couldn't do certain things. Didn't really have a moment of prayer. If the students chose to do that, they could, but really try not to be involved in that because that looks like an adult trying to lead that. We did end up having some students, like I said, take a small sticker and put it on the helmet of his jersey number.
That's their choice, not against our board policy. So some of those things just kind of moving forward. The first assemblies, those first couple days, I think there was a lot of kids walking around kind of lost a little bit. And maybe you're reading into that a little bit. We didn't know, know, some of his friends were walking around and some of them had his name on their shirt and different things. So it brought attention to things and little by little, I think things have gotten into some normalcy to where it's not gone away. It's definitely still.
up front still talked about still all of those things but I think it's moving forward. think some of those things that we've put in place have made it little easier to know that there's a resource out there for the students to talk to.
Rick Sola (34:25.269)
know, one thing I have found is, you know, that routine, the school routine, every school's got that routine. That provides a lot of comfort for a lot of kids too. And I think that is the hard balance when any tragic situation reaches a school.
There are some kids that they need that one-on-one perhaps with a counselor. They need some additional supports. There are some kids who that might not be what they need, but what they need is they need that normal school day and that reliability to be able to come to school and.
I don't know, I hate to use the word distracted, but to be able to go to school and that could be the consistent, reliable place. I think, you know, we have similar types of board policies and I think that's what those are rooted in is school's got to be that predictable place. And we work individually and intentionally with those who need more. But that can be really hard because like you said, hearts are in the right place, but it's emotional and we all want to help. And we all don't want this to happen ever again.
Tom Simmons (35:30.42)
Absolutely. And I think what's hard is, you know, some of the questions that were being thrown at me, eighth grade promotion, that's at the end of the school year in May. And I've got that thrown at me three days after, you know, all of this tragedy happened. And I'm like, I don't really want to make this decision right now. But in their mind, it was the right decision. They wanted to get things moving and understand what they could and couldn't do. Where that gets a little bit awkward is that eighth grade promotion is not put on by our school district. It's put on by
family, so it's really not up for board policy, but my counselors, my building leadership team, myself, my assistant principal, we all sent our opinions, I guess, if you will, where we would like to have that, would we want the name on the back of the eighth grade promotion shirts. And basically we all talked about how research suggests that's probably not the best policy to do. And again, you have these families that aren't in our world. They don't live in
policies they don't live with the students and how that affects them. And so for them to kind of realize that, so I had to send a kind of an email to my PTO, or it's called PRIDE here, organization to let them know that I understand your wishes, but it's not that we're not being supported, but I don't think we can support that decision based on this research and based on this information. I don't know how well it was received. I think they understand it, but again, I think their hearts went in the right place, but it's a difficult thing to overcome.
Rick Sola (36:57.373)
Yeah, well, there's there's so many things and I just want to wish you all the best as you move through the school year and as all those currently unknown or unanticipated things they they come up and they continue to and you know, certainly it's part of the role but it sounds like so many positive things are in place to really take care of your people.
the people, your students, your staff, the family involved in the community around you and you know, hopefully, you sometimes out of tragedy comes some really positive
you know, change or impact, and in this case, awareness. And having talked with you prior, you mentioned this even just on this, but the want for the parents to really be forthcoming and to help prevent this from happening to anybody else. you know, there's many layers here, but as far as the online effect and what led to this, and I have seen that in my community.
and it's an unfortunate reality for our kids and it's hidden because we don't necessarily see that. It's on their phones and just like you said, the window of time can be so quick because our kids, they're snap decision makers and they snap judgment and they just, they act.
Tom Simmons (38:29.198)
I think what I learned from this is I didn't realize how many social media things that we thought, safe's probably not the right word, but that kids use and aren't that big a deal that, like I said, Roblox, Roblox they were talking about is a really bad one that extortionists and sex-tortionists and people for sex trafficking utilize because they know that's where kids are going to be and so they're going to befriend them there and start talking to them. And Snapchat and TikTok and all those, we kind of know those have their loopholes or whatever, but.
just some of the other online things and then speaking with Ben Tracy on the phone and just talking to different people, how many of those that it's kind of got to be terrifying for families to know that you really got to watch all those things. And so I can understand more and more every day why schools are wanting to go to a no cell phone bell to bell because that was one of my first concerns is what's going to happen if the child's sitting at lunch and they're dealing with this situation with a sex torsionist on the phone. Now it's during my school day.
how am I gonna navigate that? And that kind of terrifies me a little bit. so our policy is that our students get their cell phones at lunch. And so it makes it a little bit harder to navigate what they're doing during that time, because it's their cell phone. But I definitely am leaning more and more towards that avenue of being a bell to bell person to send no cell phones during the day. And I think it would eliminate that social media and all of the other drama that goes with that.
Rick Sola (39:52.392)
Right. And it may promote more face to face interaction and, you know, technology just moves so fast. And, you know, there's so many apps. You mentioned roadblocks. I wrote that down. I had not ever heard of that before. I'm familiar with Snapchat and all the other ones. But, you know, it kind of goes back to what I mentioned earlier is I don't want to say we're not equipped, but things do move really quick. And I think it's important that
we as principals building leaders continue to have these conversations and be able to stay on top of things. And oftentimes a lot of that information will actually come from our school resource officers here where I'm at. They learn to learn of trends and things and they'll pass things forward, but it just moves so fast. So.
Tom Simmons (40:37.678)
I'm a techno nerd, if you will, and I love technology. so even being a person that's older and liking technology, it's kind of fun. We had an instance today where we had a situation where something happened with her phone and she videoed something. And I'm like, can I see your phone? And she said, yeah, I deleted it. And I said, that's OK. And she didn't know there was a deleted folder where I could recover it and recovered what we needed. And it's just kind of funny to watch the kids go, how did he know how to do that? And so it's fun to have. And that wasn't something fantastic, but it's fun to watch them realize that there are people that know technology.
Rick Sola (41:00.979)
Hahaha.
Tom Simmons (41:07.776)
And they're just using it as a device to communicate with their friends and not sometimes always in the most positive way.
Rick Sola (41:13.459)
Yeah, sometimes I think we give them too much credit that they know technology. think they know apps and I think they know ways to circumvent circumnavigate some of the things that, you know, to get around things. well, Tom, you know, this conversation, I just really appreciate you coming on because I think it is a topic that it reaches all schools. It impacts all communities. And, it's one that,
I mean, personally don't know a whole lot about, but I have heard even just like I said, where I'm at, what you're talking about is happening around here. it's, it's, you know, going back to many years ago, the whole stranger danger, it's this, this has to be a big part of our, our, you know, technological, you know, device responsibility lessons and things is we got to get
I think fairly direct with what is potentially out there. But also the other side of that is, you know, we all make mistakes and the mistakes are not final. Come talk to the people around you, the adults around you.
Tom Simmons (42:24.354)
Very much so.
Rick Sola (42:26.269)
So thank you for coming on and before we wrap up here, I know we have spent the time talking about a really important but heavy topic. But as you move forward through this year and you think about all the staff that you're working around you, I wanna give you an opportunity to brag on the El Dorado Wildcats and the people you get to work with every day.
Tom Simmons (42:48.332)
You know, I took on this job three years ago and we have such a positive culture during this year of struggles. You know, the staff has stepped up and done an incredible.
job of just taking care of the students in need. You know, I have a supportive administrative staff. I have a supportive superintendent, assistant superintendent, and the staff there. The school board is greatly supportive. And so I think having that makes my job a lot easier. And so, you know, the Wildcats, we have a great building. We have great facilities. A lot of times when people come here to play basketball, kind of have this sunken gym. And so they walk in and they're just kind of in awe. My students get to play at BG Stadium here in town the same.
one that Butler Community College gets to play on. And so kind of a cool experience for all these kids. And so I think the Wildcats were doing a great job of taking care of students, taking care of staff, and like I said, just changing the culture and taking care of the community.
Rick Sola (43:41.599)
Yeah. Well, very good. Well, all the best to you this school year. And you use that word experience. And I love that. I love that word as it relates to middle school, because I talk about like the experience that we get to provide for our kids every day. And you just you just mentioned several that are upcoming for your kids. And I hope it's just a great year moving ahead and all the best to you as you move forward. And once again, thanks for coming on the Cool Coffee Podcast to share this.
Tom Simmons (44:08.013)
Thank you. Appreciate being here.
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