Unnerved by the national rash of schoolyard shootings, officials at Lincoln-Way School District 210 are considering a policy that would allow them to expel students who make threatening comments to or about classmates or teachers.
The proposal was embraced by the school board, which considered it during a meeting Thursday night. The measure is one of the first in the Chicago area to specifically address students’ threats made jokingly or otherwise.
The board is expected to vote on the proposed policy next month.
“This is not a blanket policy that expels every student who makes a threat,” said John Izzo, attorney for Lincoln-Way school district. “We recognize there is a difference between a student blowing off steam and a genuine threat. There is still a judgment call that has to be made on the part of the school official, but the policy makes students aware that statements like this are prohibited and can lead to punishment.”
District Supt. Lawrence Wyllie said the plan is intended to heighten awareness of the behavior that is expected of students.
“It’s virtually impossible” to prevent every possible danger, he said, but school officials can raise the level of awareness.
Echoing that sentiment, school board member John Slack said, “I like the awareness factor in bringing it up. It’s too bad we have to do it.”
Christine Glatz, board vice president, endorsed the plan, saying, “I think we should (approve this policy) to keep the schools safer.”
Most school districts have zero-tolerance policies regarding school violence and taking weapons to school. But few, if any, have regulations about threatening to commit such actions.
Lincoln-Way probably will not be the last to consider such a proposal.
Board member Bob Hoaglund said schools across the country are beginning to deal with the matter.
Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, Calif., said, “It is one of the top agenda items for school officials this summer.
“School officials from the West Coast to the East Coast have seen what can happen when threats are not taken to heart, and they want to make sure that they have, in writing, how they will handle them next year.”
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Until recently, talk of harming a teacher or a classmate would have been shrugged off as childhood bravado, possibly landing the student in the principal’s office for an admonishment.
In Springfield, Ore., a teen accused of gunning down two students in the cafeteria allegedly told friends he was going to kill.
In Jonesboro, Ark., a 13-year-old accused in the ambush murders of five supposedly warned a classmate of his plan to kill a former girlfriend.
On the heels of those shootings, educators have been cracking down on threatening comments.
But Izzo said the policy he drafted allows for discretion on the part of administrators.
Izzo said the proposal addresses “actual engagement of a violent act, to simply joking about it, to everything in between.”
The actions, Izzo said, are “subject to appropriate discipline, up to and including suspension and expulsion.”
Wyllie said, “We want our students to know that they have to be a little more careful about what they say because we are going to take all these remarks seriously.”
Some Lincoln-Way parents have voiced support for the proposal.
“Speaking as a parent and an educator, I think . . . that preparing a policy to deal with verbal threats is a wise stand,” said Prudee Topielec, a junior high school teacher with two sons at Lincoln-Way. “It’s just something you have to do in this day and age.”