Students who saw teacher stabbed to death at park to return to class

Counselors will be greeting students and staff Thursday at Huntington Academy in Long Beach, closed since teacher Kellye Taylor was stabbed to death at a park across the street.

A crisis unit with preachers and psychologists will be brought in to counsel students, some of whom witnessed the fatal incident Friday while they played at recess, said Taylor’s sister Mary Bryant.

Police arrested Steven Brown, 50, Friday on suspicion of murder. He is the boyfriend of Taylor’s daughter Tia.

PHOTOS: Long Beach teacher killed

According to court records, Brown claimed that Taylor was an “informant” who told social workers he abused his children. L.A. County officials confirmed the abuse and in March gave Taylor custody of five children — ages 2 to 17 — who had been living with Brown and Tia Taylor.

Taylor’s death Friday horrified a city that revered her and her family of educators.

Her mother, Carrie Bryant, opened a preschool in 1972 in Cambodia Town to address the area’s lack of affordable day care.

Later, Carrie Bryant started Huntington Academy, an elementary school that served working-class children in a blue, two-story house across from Orizaba Park.

Mary Bryant said Taylor and her four sisters grew up at the schools, helping toddlers with arts and crafts and racing them on the playground. As a teacher at Huntington Academy, Bryant said, Taylor was adored as the ever-smiling Miss Kellye.

Taylor was happy and outgoing, and she loved children -- teaching at her mother’s school was who she was, Bryant said.

“My heart is broken,” Bryant said. “Only God can heal it. It hurts so bad.”

A fund has been set up by Taylor’s family for donations for her burial, Bryant said. Contributions can be made here.

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Twitter: @Sam_Schaefer

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