A preschool classroom is shaken by loss after a mass killing in Louisiana

Teacher Angela Hall always starts the day by gathering her preschool students in a circle in their Shreveport, Louisiana, classroom. The children laugh. They share. And they’re looking for who’s missing.

“Braylon, he’s not here,” she recalled one of her students Monday.

Braylon Snow, who just turned 5, was one of seven siblings who were shot and killed Sunday by their father in an attack that also killed their cousin. The shooting shook Shreveport classrooms where teachers like Hall on Monday came face-to-face with distraught parents and a messy mix of emotions.

In Hall’s class at Johnnie L. Cochran Head Start, it’s likely that students immediately noticed Braylon’s absence. Every day, Hall asks his students to look for friends who aren’t there.

“When they come back tomorrow, we can tell them, ‘Hey, we missed you, we’re glad you’re back,'” she tells them.

But Hall wasn’t ready to tell students that the boy she described as a “cool little guy” wasn’t coming back. She continued to walk in a circle. Numb and heartbroken, she held out until noon and then returned home.

“I’m not good to my babies right now because I just feel like I need a moment of silence and just pray,” she said.

At Head Start, preparations for next month’s graduation ceremony are in full swing. Hall, the organist and pianist at his local Baptist church, wrote a song for the ceremony.

The students, who wear caps and gowns for the festivities, have been busy learning the words, excited about the prospect of starting kindergarten in the fall. Hall worked hard to make sure they were ready.

Last Thursday, she took Braylon’s mother aside during morning drop-off, boasting that Braylon wrote her first and last name. Braylon was also becoming very independent, pouring syrup for his pancakes onto his plate himself. He didn’t even need a reminder to wash his hands.

“I have no problem with Braylon,” she told her mother.

Braylon greeted Hall – known to her students as “Ms. Hall” – every day with a little wave.

As the year progressed, she forced more and more toothless smiles from him. He loved spending time on the playground – playing chase, tag and even getting in “a little fight”. She laughed remembering it.

“He was a quiet little soul in the classroom most of the time,” she said. “When he had a little more energy or something, it was just a joy to see him smile and laugh.”

But now, Sunday has arrived. After church, she went to her mother’s house. It was then that she came across an article about the shooting.

The number of victims was so high that she had difficulty understanding it. Then she learned that Braylon was one of the victims. She also knew one of his brothers. He had been a Head Start student at the school last year.

“I broke down and started crying,” she said.

The same thing happened Monday morning on the way back when she locked eyes with a parent. Neither could say anything; preschoolers were all around them.

“I immediately broke down,” she said. The same was true for the parent and the teaching assistant.

She now relies on her faith. She prays for the dead, for the families and also for the teachers.

“And I just pray for all the educators that have been in contact with these kids because it’s hard because my parents’ babies become my babies. And I treat them like they’re my own. So I really pray that he supports all of us during this time.

“Just give us this strength.”