PHOENIX — Walking through South Pointe High School in South Phoenix, Larry McGill, Jr. doesn’t make it far without a fist bump from a student or saying hi to another.
McGill has been the school leader of the charter school since it opened in 2003. In recent years, McGill has lost at least five teens to violence in the Valley.
“To lose them, it hurts a lot because you were making a difference,” McGill said. “And they were on their way to breaking that cycle. They were the ones.”
Whether walking the halls or sitting in his office talking about his more than 600 students’ accomplishments, McGill smiles like a proud dad. Even showing off what McGill calls the “Prove It” book, one of several scrapbooks that contain his students’ college acceptance letters and scholarship awards.
“When I can show these kids that, ‘Hey, one of your neighbors - your peers, they got a $45,000 scholarship’ and I show them the money,” McGill says waving one of the letters. “It kind of, you know, helps to understand that, ‘Maybe I can be there, maybe I can actually do the same thing.’”
McGill and his faculty and staff set a culture of boundaries and high expectations of the students. The school requires they earn at least a 70% level mastery to get their credit, but McGill says he expects more.
“I say, ‘Well, now I’m treating you like you’re my child. So you need to get A’s and B’s,’" McGill said. “They laugh - but that’s the point I want to make. I want them to push for better.”
But like any parent, he shouldn’t have to mourn his students.
“To have a relationship with these students to where even when they’re gone, you still have visions of them or you can hear them,” McGill said.
Jaiden Torrez is one of those students McGill can still hear as he’s running in late to school.
“I can hear him say, ‘Mr. McGill, I got you.’ Because I would be riding him because he was late, and I'd be on him, ‘I got you, Mr. McGill. I'll be on time,’” McGill recalls.
Torrez was shot and killed in February 2021. He was 16-years-old. His death remains unsolved in Phoenix.
McGill says before Christmas that school year he lost another student to gun violence too and says his death is still unsolved.
In 2023, McGill says siblings connected to the school were both killed in gun violence too. A month later, another student was shot in Guadalupe.
“It gets you emotional, it gets you choked up. But you know what, there's other kids that I have to help,” McGill said. “There's other families and we're gonna make a difference.”
Over his time as school leader, he’s seen violence change in the Valley.
“Even with Jaiden - it wasn’t here in South Phoenix,” McGill said. “Okay - so now it’s everywhere. So, I don’t know. I don’t know how to win.”
But, he’s trying to help the students who are still here and those who are regularly enrolling, to break cycles.
“Be the first one to graduate from high school, you know, the first one to make it through school without being a teen parent. You know, first ones to go to college - okay, graduate from college,” McGill said. “And those are the main cycles, the first ones that got away from the gang activity, or the negative behaviors out there that kids get caught up in these days.”
McGill says he encourages teens to make better decisions, and parents to help them.
“I tell the kids to, you know, be better be mindful. My advice to parents: Don't send your kids to parties. That's where a lot of these things are happening. Don't send your kids to the park, unfortunately at night,” McGill said. “You know, that's where these things are happening. You know this because you are part of the community. So why are we repeating those things? I tell the kids, yes, it could happen anywhere. But if you keep going here, what do you think's gonna happen eventually?”
McGill and his staff set the culture of reaching for a high bar, while also saying the teens need support across the community.
“If everyone would do their part within their homes, within their school house, to raise the bar, have the supports in place because these kids need so much support,” McGill said, “It's not just raise the bar and make them climb it. You got to help them get up that ladder.”
McGill will be a panelist at our Teen Violence Town Hall on Feb. 27. For more information, click here.