Post Reports: Surviving to graduation

A quarter of a century since the Columbine school shooting rocked a nation, the specter of gun violence has become a depressing and inescapable new normal for high schoolers all over the United States. How has this reshaped American education? What is being done to help students cope with their bleak reality? And what, really, can schools do to keep their populations safe? To answer these questions, Washington Post reporters Hannah Natanson, Sabby Robinson, and Moriah Balingit embedded themselves in Huguenot High School in Richmond, Virginia, for months. The result is the three-part podcast series “Surviving to graduation.” Bookended by two gun-related tragedies at Huguenot (including one at the school’s graduation ceremony), this monthslong investigation offers a holistic portrait of a modern-day American high school. The podcast features candid conversations with students, teachers, district officials, and even Richmond’s local police force—all of whom place us squarely within a school experimenting with trauma-informed strategy to build a safer community. For capturing the fears and anxieties of a generation of students and educators whose day-to-day lives are shaped by gun violence and its inescapable aftermath, “Surviving to graduation” wins a Peabody Award.