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Dozens of parents, students, teachers and community members stood before the recent Elmwood Park Community Unit School District 401 Board of Education calling for change in leadership and district safety and communication policies after a Elmwood Park High School student allegedly brought a gun to school earlier this month.
The meeting, held at the high school in Elmwood Park in the main gym to accommodate the crowd, came a day after a student walkout and angry social media posts by parents and students over how district officials handled the situation. The same day as the board meeting, students at the district’s middle school had planned a walkout too.
According to district officials, an EPHS student was seen with a loaded gun inside the school building. After an encounter with school officials, the 17-year-old, who has not been publicly identified because he is a juvenile, left the building, officials said, and was soon after arrested by River Grove police.
The student is charged with possession of a handgun, River Grove Police Chief Mike Konwinski previously told Pioneer Press.
At the start of the March 15 board meeting, school board President Frank Parisi made a statement about the incident and responded to concerns over district response and communication.
“Since the incident on March 6, there’s been a lot of misinformation that doesn’t represent the school or the district,” Parisi said. “We want to ensure everyone our top priority is to provide a safe school environment to protect our students and staff. Like you, we are so grateful the situation did not result in physical harm to anyone.”
He explained that in the minutes, hours and days that followed the incident, the district shared what it was legally allowed to share about the situation during an ongoing police investigation. Details were limited to protect the integrity of that investigation, he said, acknowledging it’s frustrating when many in the community were getting more details from social media.
Parisi said the district and law enforcement had a shared goal to not jeopardize the district’s or the judicial system’s ability to take legal and disciplinary actions. School and law enforcement officials can’t reveal the name of the student involved since the student is under the age of 18 and the district is bound by federal laws of confidentiality of student records, officials explained.
Parisi also addressed two questions that were repeatedly asked of district officials: Why was a lockdown not called and was school security personnel told the student had a gun?
“First, school administrators acted quickly and made decisions in seconds based on their ongoing training and safety protocols. Law enforcement records confirm they received 911 calls from school staff to report this incident,” Parisi said.
He explained lockdowns are typically called when the location of the threat is known and isolated, when students are in classrooms and if the location of the potential threat is external.
“In this case, even though the location of the student was known, the administration did not want to alert the student that they were aware the student was potentially in possession of a weapon – which could have led to further escalation,” Parisi said.
The board president said EPHS deans confronted and stayed with the student in the building and continued to watch when the student left the building.
“It was a passing period and if a lockdown was called, students would have entered the nearest classroom which would have made it challenging to find and mitigate the threat,” he said. “It could have potentially locked students in the room with the threat.
“Law enforcement has affirmed that the actions by school staff effectively mitigated the threat and prevented violence,” Parisi said. “We believe that the decision not to call a lockdown while the student was in the building, in this case, was the right one.
“However, we do believe that it would have been appropriate to call a lockdown at EPHS and surrounding schools immediately once the student left the building, which would have been in place only a few minutes,” Parisi said.
He said the board has directed the administration to review safety plans and protocols, as well as crisis management response, and present them to the board for discussion at its April 19 meeting.
Parisi also said a school security officer is currently under investigation and acknowledged what the security person shared in the media was not authorized and was “inaccurate, misleading and could have compromised the ongoing district and law enforcement investigation.”
He also addressed accusations that the district’s communication was sent via email and not in a timely manner.
In the days after the incident, Superintendent Leah Gauthier posted emails to the EPHS website. An initial one called for e-learning for the high school students due to a threat she said the district received after learning students planned to walkout. It was in subsequent emails that Gauthier made mention of the incident with the student and the alleged gun.
“Moving forward, information will be sent out in multiple modalities,” Parisi said. “Parents and staff will receive a text message or phone call alerting them to an urgent email from the district.”
He acknowledged the goal was to de-escalate the threat and prevent panic and, as a result, the district did not proactively address students during that school day. They will be reviewing a plan on what, when and how information should be communicated to students, according to the board president.
Twenty-one individuals signed up to speak at the meeting and Judy Fox, representing the district’s union for school secretaries, nurses, campus monitors, tech support and paraprofessionals, spoke first.
“Student safety is our members’ top priority and we are very thankful no students or staff were harmed,” Fox said. “This incident makes it clear our district needs to assess existing district safety policies and procedures and ensure every staff member is aware of them.”
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She encouraged the administration to commit to full transparency in relation to safety issues.
“Last week, there was a great deal of confusion on what occurred and how the situation was handled. In times of danger, that is simply unacceptable,” Fox said. “Every staff member should understand how and where to report incidents to ensure direct immediate action will be taken.”
Elmwood Park Educational Team president Amy Lynn Vero, representing teachers and special student services staff in the district, also addressed the board with a list of initiatives and suggested the events of March 6 were a culmination of needed change in SD401.
“We want a stronger relationship and presence with our local police force in all our school buildings throughout the school day,” Vero said. “We want higher salaries for our security staff to ensure quality experience and commitment. We want continued efforts to increase mental health resources for our students, including additional staff to accomplish these initiatives.”
While the school is located in Elmwood Park, officials told Pioneer Press EPHS falls in the River Grove police jurisdiction.
Vero also said that a SD401 discipline policy should be communicated to students and parents, and district policy training should be an annual requirement for all district administrators.
“We ask that you not see this evening as an overreaction but instead as an opportunity for you to truly listen to the very people you are elected to serve,” Vero said.
Emily Long, a former SD401 marketing and publishing specialist who resigned in December, told the board a teacher had asked to speak with her after the incident. She told the board the teacher sounded scared and terrified, and she knew she was being called to be the voice of those who did not come forward. To articulate the gravity of the situation, she cited the mass shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado; Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut; Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas; and the massacre at the Fourth of July parade in north suburban Highland Park.
“EPHS is one trigger away from turning into a bloodbath. That’s the severity of the situation and do not take my words lightly,” Long said, adding her greatest fear was the school board would continue to trust the decisions made by Gauthier and that she will continue to rule with an “iron fist.”
“I know when a story is lying by omission and when a story is misleading,” Long said. “The superintendent chose to omit facts and details to keep the community ignorant of the truth. Immediate action needed to be taken but there was a haphazard response.
“The school deserves a superintendent who is proactive in her leadership, not reactive,” Long said.
She said the way this situation was handled by the superintendent should be grounds for termination.
“The board deserves a superintendent they can trust,” Long said, “and the community deserves a trustworthy leader.”
Elizabeth Owens-Schiele is a freelancer.