Former Cold Spring principal reaches out to 'invisible kids' to improve mental health and prevent violence

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COLD SPRING — Jerry Sparby has seen firsthand the destruction gun violence can have in schools — and has investigated the root causes.

He was the principal of Cold Spring Elementary in 2003, when a freshman killed two other students at ROCORI High School. The 20th anniversary of that event is Sunday, Sept. 24, 2003. Ever since that incident, Sparby has been doing whatever he can to prevent violence in schools.

Following the shooting, Sparby returned to graduate school to try to figure out how he could help what he calls “the invisible kids.” These are the kids who could potentially commit outward violence, he said. But kids can also turn their pain inward, developing depression, high anxiety or a risk of suicide.

Freshman Jason McLaughlin was convicted of shooting and killing two fellow classmates on Sept. 24, 2003, at ROCORI High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota.

That includes kids such as Jason McLaughlin, who killed two fellow students in ROCORI when he was 15 years old. Sparby spent time with McLaughlin following the shooting, trying to understand what happened. McLaughlin told Sparby that he used to hide on the playground so kids wouldn’t see that he didn’t have any friends, he said.

Sparby realized McLaughlin was literally an “invisible kid.” When Sparby returned to the playground, he said he saw what he had been missing: invisible kids, hiding on the playground to avoid getting picked on.

In his work, he sees kids every day who are carrying trauma and the stress of their parents, their families, their teachers, their communities and their country.

“And these little kids don't have a clue where it's coming from, but they're feeling the stress,” Sparby said during a phone interview with St. Cloud LIVE.

Kids are suffering, and we’re not equipped to handle it with the way we’re currently doing things in education, Sparby said.

“There's never going to be enough paraprofessionals. There's never going to be enough special ed teachers. There's never going to be enough counselors. There's never going to be enough policemen or women,” Sparby said, to deal with all the pain, hurt and isolation kids are dealing with. We need to change the culture of our schools — and of our society.

“If we don't develop healthy kids and healthy communities and help kids deal with their social awkwardness, it is never going to change,” Sparby said.

ROCORI High School and Middle School serve the communities of Rockville, Cold Spring and Richmond in Central Minnesota.

Counterproductive strategies

After the shooting in Cold Spring, Sparby tried to emphasize the need to build stronger classrooms and a stronger community. It worked for a little while, but not in the long run.

“We truly didn't change the culture,” Sparby said. “We locked the doors and I kept saying, ‘We need to open the doors. We need to get the community in here. We need to build a stronger connection than we've ever done before.’”

Sparby said ROCORI has reacted to school violence like many other districts across the country.

“They've locked up the doors. They’ve created more security — like every other district in the country. And yet, as far as building a healthier community, I'm not sure that they've been very successful,” Sparby said. “It's the same thing I find whether I'm in Santa Barbara, California, or in St. Cloud, Minnesota … Kids are more disconnected today than ever. And yet, schools continued to do the same thing they've done for the last 20 years, which wasn’t working 20 years ago.”

If we don't develop healthy kids and healthy communities and help kids deal with their social awkwardness, it is never going to change.

Jerry Sparby

Sparby finds some of the things schools are doing in the name of safety or education to be counterproductive. For instance, he’s seen active shooter drills traumatize or retraumatize kids.

And he’s heard from kids who committed acts of violence in schools where drills served as a training manual for potential shooters. Sparby said he does understand the motivation behind these kinds of drills, but that they can also make kids feel more stress and less safe.

“We basically just created more stress in their bodies,” Sparby said. “The kids, when they’re scared, they want somebody to lead them.”

Kevin Enerson, ROCORI’s superintendent who joined the district this summer, said local schools continue to do various types of safety training, including so-called “run, hide, fight” training, but doesn’t hold active shooter drills.

Students Aaron Rollins and Seth Bartell were killed in the 2003 incident. While there are no special events planned at the school or in the city, Rollins and Bartell have not been forgotten.

Sparby also sees schools reacting to the learning losses of COVID in exactly the wrong way. Schools are eliminating the parts of school curriculum that allow for creative expression, movement and stress release: physical education, music and art. He said he understands the predicament of school leadership, but that these efforts could end up being counterproductive.

“All three of those curriculums — phys ed, art and music — are one of the biggest developers of our brain,” Sparby said. “It’s counterproductive in my mind. I understand … we gotta get kids reading better. … But without … those three curriculums, I don't know how we can do it.”

The good news

Yes, there are a lot of “invisible kids” — the kids who don’t fit in, the kids who are having a hard time at home, the kids who don’t fit into our society’s education system. But in all of his work across the country, “I've yet to find a kid that doesn't want help,” Sparby said.

“We've got to get the kids moving. We've got to get these kids engaged in social activities,” Sparby said.

Sparby has started and is involved with a number of initiatives over the years to help kids and adults.

Behind everything Sparby does is connection: creating community, creating social networks and sparking friendships.

There’s the Yes Network, which is a social impact network in Central Minnesota for families, educators and neighbors to promote learning and youth development. One of their major initiatives is a summer meal program which also includes movement and social interaction for kids.

There’s Building a World of Love, where medical and service providers use a relationship-based model of care to help people overcome trauma, anxiety and depression.

There are two organizations that use horses to help people heal as well as prevent and reduce violence, including Lead Up International and Horse Sense and Healing.

And then there’s Sparby's latest: HuddLUp, an effort to bring play, connection and stress-reduction techniques directly into schools. He does this by engaging teachers to play with their students at least a few times a day and include breathing techniques to reduce student stress levels.

Spurred on to help after the shooting, former elementary principal Jerry Sparby founded HuddLUp, a national nonprofit designed to improve students' mental health.

He’s brought HuddLUp into Central Minnesota classrooms, including in ROCORI and Sartell.

“The teachers are excited,” Sparby said. “There is a genuine commitment to trying to make the kids in classrooms have a healthier place for all.”

The consequences if we do nothing

If we don’t make changes now, we’ll be dealing with the consequences for decades — including the consequences of school violence, Sparby said.

Sparby said he still sees ROCORI graduates dealing with the trauma, 20 years after going through the shooting.

“You think that that's long gone and it's not,” Sparby said. “Now they're their parents, and their kids are in school. … They still have that trauma within them and they haven't really learned how to figure out how to release it.”

Our cultural default is just to say that they'll get over it and move on, Sparkby said. That works for some people, but not all.

“They're still trying to figure out the pieces and put pieces back together,” Sparby said. “The impact — I don't know that ever goes away. I don't think it ever does.”