The Founder of Imhotep Charter School reflects on the history of the school and the healing that students are going through now

Imhotep Charter High School has been mentioned so many times over the last three weeks that even when I'm sleeping, I'm thinking about the school, the students, the teachers, the counselors, and all other staff members.

- Thera Martin

Equally, I've been thinking about the parents and other loved ones of Imhotep students.

Unfortunately, in the first week of March of this year, a group of students from Imhotep Charter High School, who were waiting for a Septa bus, were ambushed; five students ended up being shot, one of them fatally. His name was Dayeman Taylor. I do not make light of his murder or of the murder of other people in our city. Somehow, when a young person is killed, it hits me differently. It seems to hurt more, and I grieve, even when I don't personally know the various victims of senseless violence on our streets.

Imhotep Charter High School, founded in 1998, is not your average run-of-the-mill charter school. At Imhotep, from the Founders to the Instructors, to the students and parents of the students, they march to a different drum beat, and--it's a positive drumbeat. I recently interviewed Mamma Christine Wiggins, the most well known personality of the founders of Imhotep, in order to give SCOOP readers a better perspective of the school and how well it has operated over the years, even with some challenges and hurdles along the way.