West Cook News

Members of the Elmwood Park school district continue to deal with the aftermath of a weapons incident in their school district, opening up conversations regarding school safety at their April 19 board meeting. 

Superintendent Dr. Leah Gauthier delivered an update to Elmwood Park Community Schools members regarding the district's efforts to shore up school safety and improve crisis communication following a mid-March incident in which a student brought a gun into a high school building.

"Our existing communication practices include building-wide announcements, automated messages (and) follow-up communication to staff, parents and guardians using swift reach via power school and or remind app," Gauthier said during the meeting. "Since March of 2023, we've been researching enhanced platforms for urgent communication."

Future commitments include an updated integrated phone system, swift communication to staff, students, parents and guardians and further communication after the incident providing additional details and "expanding the functionality to support urgent communications" to everyone via Remind, Gauthier added.

No one was injured during the March incident as the student walked out of the building before anyone was able to confront him and was promptly apprehended by the police and charged with possession of a handgun. The high school never went into a lockdown.

Shortly after, during the school board's March meeting, upset students and parents filled the room, furious that the administration did not immediately lock down the school when they discovered the weapon. 

Despite this, Superintendent Gauthier remained confident that not calling a lockdown was the right choice, stating they discovered the weapon during a passing period when students were all in the halls and that they did not want to startle or alert the student that they knew of the weapon. While the April board meeting saw updates to the district's safety practices and the changes to be made moving forward, Gauthier said they have conducted a comprehensive safety audit of all four school buildings and will continue to make changes based on recommendations of the auditors as needed.

These changes come on the heels of a rising number of school shootings across the country this year. According to K-12 Dive, there have already been more shootings, with more victims, within the first three months of 2023 than during the same time frame last year. Under the Gun Violence Archive's definition of a mass shooting as one with four or more victims—injured or killed—other than the shooter, there were 10 shootings on school grounds in 2022 and two already this year, leading to calls for change across the country.

Moving forward, she said, the district is also working on plans to employ a full-time School Resource Officer (SRO) from the local police force to work in the high school, hoping to improve safety and build relationships with students, expanding their existing SRO program.

While they already have some basic training and procedures for all emergency drills, fire, lockdowns, shooter, tornado..etc, the district will increase the staff training in all emergency situations. As a part of their efforts, Gauthier said, they will bring in Cook County sheriffs with K9s more regularly to do sweeps in the building and have a great law enforcement presence. They will also add campus monitors to their staffing levels and are looking to add a position for the district director of safety and security to oversee all of these processes and components. 

There were no comments made on Superintendent Gauthier’s announcements.