Skip to footer

Hero principal sacrifices own life to save her students

Susan Jordan, an Indianapolis educator, was killed Tuesday after pushing several of her students out of the way of a school bus that had accelerated over a curb.

|
Mykal McEldowney/The Indianapolis Star/AP
A school bus driver yells to a parent that their child is safe after a bus accident at Amy Beverland Elementary School left several students injured and one adult dead on school grounds on Tuesday in Indianapolis. Authorities say a bus waiting outside the Indianapolis elementary school suddenly lurched forward and struck them.
  • By Ben Thompson Staff

An elementary school principal in Indianapolis was killed Tuesday after pushing several students out of the way of an approaching school bus, authorities said.

Officials reported that the incident occurred around 2:45 p.m. near Amy Beverland Elementary School, where principal Susan Jordan worked, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police.

"At some point, the stationary bus lurched forward and jumped the curb,” Indianapolis Fire Department Capt. Rita Reith told the Associated Press. “The bus was not moving at the time directly before it jumped the curb.”

The female bus driver was reportedly unsure what caused the vehicle to accelerate, but said she saw Ms. Jordan shove several students from the path of the oncoming bus.

Two 10-year-old students sustained injuries that are not life-threatening, while the driver and her 25 passengers did not require treatment. Jordan, who had been the Beverland school’s principal for 22 years, was pronounced dead at the scene.

“Susan was an amazing educator. She had a remarkable way of making everyone she came in contact with feel valued and important. She had a passion for children that is unmatched,” the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township Board of Education said in a statement. “The entire Lawrence Township Community mourns her loss and extends our sympathy to the Amy Beverland Community [and] the multitudes of people whose lives she touched.”

The district cancelled classes Wednesday to mourn Jordan’s loss, while making several locations available for “emotional support to our staff and families,” according to the district website.

“This is a great example of an educational leader in our state and our city,” Shawn Smith, the school system’s superintendent, said at a news conference, AP reported.

“Just a phenomenal individual that truly cared about children. This is a tragic situation that we have. This loss is going to ripple across our district of 15,000 students,” Mr. Smith said.

Material from Reuters and the Associated Press was used in this report.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Hero principal sacrifices own life to save her students
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0127/Hero-principal-sacrifices-own-life-to-save-her-students
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe