By Sam Elliott
A school bus accident around 2:45 p.m. Jan. 25 at Amy Beverland Elementary School resulted in the death of school principal Susan Jordan, as well as non-life-threatening injuries to two 10-year-old students.
“It’s very, very sad that I have to report that the fatality was a great educator. Mrs. Susan Jordan, the principal of Amy Beverland, was fatally struck by a school bus this afternoon,” Dr. Shawn Smith, superintendent of the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township, said. “As superintendent of schools and a representative of the entire school community, we lost a great educator today. We’re going to work very closely with the authorities, we want to make it very clear it was an accident and we just ask that everyone in this community and beyond please pray for our students.
“This great school has only had two principals in its history and Susan Jordan was one of them — 22 years of leading this school, quite frankly ladies and gentlemen we’re talking about a legend in education,” Smith added.
Classes were cancelled district-wide Jan. 27 to allow the community to mourn Jordan, as Amy Beverland Elementary was among four locations in the district open for emotional support for staff and families.
“We cannot express deeply enough the sympathy and condolence that all of the City of Indianapolis feels, not only for the family of Susan Jordan, but for those children who were affected by today’s accident,” Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said. “It is on tragic afternoons and evenings like this evenings when we are led to cry and to mourn, but it is on afternoons like this afternoon that we are also reminded of the goodness of the people that respond to tragedies like this and that we are in fact one city. We will endure. There will be tomorrow, as sad as this evening has been. We express our condolences to the entire Amy Beverland community and to Lawrence Township schools.”
