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Slain teacher’s legacy lives on through the arts

Hundreds of students and teachers at San Jose Elementary Friday celebrated the arts and the legacy of a beloved music teacher.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Hundreds of students and teachers at San Jose Elementary Friday celebrated the arts and the legacy of a beloved music teacher.

Deborah Liles was murdered inside her own home in March 2017. But her passion for music, song and dance lives on.

“I know my wife would be pleased,” Michael Liles, Debbie’s husband, said at the “Debbie Liles Day of the Arts.” “She thought music was what separated us from just the instinctive creatures that we could be. That music was the heart and soul of what makes us who we are as humans.”

Debbie Liles started the “Day of the Arts” at San Jose Elementary about 10 years ago. The school has carried on the tradition after Liles’ death.

“This is how she would want to be remembered,” Michael Liles said. “With kids and music and art. That was her life.”

The students spent the day going from room-to-room, taking in different music, dance and everything in between.

“It’s kind of awe-inspiring getting know someone after they’ve passed,” David R. Johns, music teacher at San Jose, said. Johns took over Liles’ position following her death and immediately learned the impact she left on the school and its students.

“Her quirkiness, and her wit, and her grit, and her hard work and everything that she put into these kids and everything that she put into this school,” Johns said.

Liles left an impact on second-grade teacher Terri Baldwin, as well. Baldwin took over the bulk of the planning for the event after Liles died.

“Some of my toughest nuts to crack last year saw the ballet, and my kind of class bully was lifting kids up and doing dances and they just…it opens up something inside them,” Baldwin said. “So that is really what Debbie kind of showed all of us.”

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