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Remembering Katherine Koonce, a victim of the mass shooting in Nashville

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Katherine Koonce was one of the victims of Monday's mass shooting in Nashville. The 60-year-old educator was headmaster at the Covenant School.

ANNA CAUDILL: She lived in a manner that has informed how I live and love the people around me.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Anna Caudill worked with Koonce for eight years at another school in Nashville, and they remained friends. She says Koonce had a way of combining developmental psychology with her Christian faith.

CAUDILL: A lot of what she did that was brilliant was she could translate that technical sort of language around childhood developmental psychology into language that people within a church setting could understand. She would talk about the potential of kids, but in terms of their unique potential as a sacred gift from God.

MARTÍNEZ: Caudill says her friend worked to empower kids with learning disabilities.

CAUDILL: She was so frank. And at first it would make me mad because I thought, gosh, I don't want kids' feelings to be hurt. I don't want them to feel ashamed. But what I learned over time was that by being frank with them, she gave them voice, and they were able to better advocate for themselves.

MARTIN: After she got word about the shooting on Monday, Caudill started watching the live news coverage.

CAUDILL: I realized about an hour into it that I was looking for Katherine. And I didn't see her. And I just kept thinking, OK, she's taking care of kids, or she's getting on the bus to go with kids to the reunification point.

MARTIN: On her way to pick up her 17-year-old son after a lockdown at his school, which is near Covenant, she found out what happened to Koonce.

CAUDILL: As I was on the way to the carpool line, my husband called and said, Katherine didn't make it.

MARTÍNEZ: She says it's a loss that will affect her entire community.

CAUDILL: Are we just going to keep letting this happen? How many - do we have that many Katherine Koonces that can just be erased? That woman was a tree. And to uproot her, you're talking about a loss of generations of knowledge and building and empowering. We can't afford that.

MARTÍNEZ: That's Anna Caudill talking about her friend Katherine Koonce, who was killed Monday by a mass shooter at the Covenant School in Nashville. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.