Geneva, Kaneland on alert over threats

[warriorpride]

www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/819002,2_1_AU29_SCHOOLS_S1.article

Geneva, Kaneland on alert over threats

February 29, 2008
Beacon News Staff
Nonspecific threats of violence were reported at both Geneva High School and Kaneland schools on Thursday.

In Geneva, officials learned of a threat written on a bathroom wall Thursday morning about possible violence that would occur at the school today.

RELATED STORIES• Online: Geneva Schools
• Online: Kaneland Schools

While school officials are conceding that many parents may choose to keep their children home, they said they will enact preventative safety measures in cooperation with the Geneva Police Department to provide a safe learning environment today:


• Entry and exit will only be allowed through the school's main doors on McKinley Avenue. Bus drop-off will remain the same, but students will be required to walk to the McKinley entrance.


• The Geneva Police Department will be on campus to provide additional security throughout the day.


• No backpacks, bags or purses will be permitted. Those items brought to the building will be subject to search and checked into the main office for retrieval at the end of the day.


• All building doors, including the McKinley Avenue entrance, will remain locked throughout the day.


• Student mobility will be greatly limited throughout the day. Only students with red or gold passes from the dean's office will be permitted to leave their classrooms.


• Off-campus lunch waivers will not be honored.


• Teaching assistant classes will not meet. Students should report to the Community Room.


• Students will not be permitted to leave Geneva High School to attend any off-campus classes, including Fox Valley Career Center courses.

Students were advised of the situation and notified of the precautions several times through announcements Thursday afternoon. They were told that lockers would be checked.

Letters were sent home to parents with their high school students, e-mails were sent to "304 Connects" and "GHS Connects" subscribers, and notices were posted on both the high school and district Web sites.

While officials said they are confident that appropriate safety precautions are being taken, parents who feel compelled to excuse their student from classes today are asked to call the attendance line at [phone].

Counselors have been made available to students.

By Thursday afternoon, when parents were picking up students and other students were loading onto buses, there already was a police presence seemingly bigger than normal days, when one squad car circulates throughout the main parking lot along the pickup area on McKinley.

One junior at the school said most students he discussed the situation with "don't think it's a serious threat." But the student, who asked not to be named, also said several people he talked to said they wanted to stay home today. The junior said he is not afraid.

"The only problem I have is you can't bring backpacks," he said.

At Kaneland schools, rumors began circulating through the communities at the elementary, middle and high school levels about possible violence, and they spread "like wildfire," according to the Kaneland Web site.

According to the site, there was no specific threat of violence. But officials have interviewed any students connected with recent disciplinary action, and added extra security at both the middle and high school levels.

The threats come in the wake of last week's incident at East Aurora High School, where a 15-year-old student posted menacing threats on his MySpace page. The Kane County state's attorney charged the student with disorderly conduct and electronic harassment. The student is being held at the Kane County Juvenile Justice Center until his March 12 court date.

[warriorpride]

warriorpride said:

Geneva, Kaneland on alert over threats

I'd be interested in other parent's thought on this. I would never put my children in a situation that I or they thought was unsafe. However, if I put myself in this situation, I think that, with controlled access, limited bags, potential search, and police presence, the school would be safer that day than any other day during the year.

[warriorpride]

It seems that about 30% of students showed up to school on Friday...

www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/820790,2_1_AU01_SCHOOLS_S1.article


Students stay away in droves, but classes go on Vague threat keeps classrooms near empty in Geneva

• Precautions taken: District provides heightened security, and ice cream, for those in attendance

March 1, 2008
By STEVE LORD [e-mail]
GENEVA -- Norma Reed shaded her eyes from the sun late Friday afternoon as she sat in the front seat of her SUV and stared at the front door of Geneva High School.

The school scene looked as it usually does most days about 2:50 p.m., as students and faculty began filtering outside. But on this afternoon, it was much less crowded.

» Click to enlarge image Geneva High School sophomores (from left) Aimee Fizer, Keri Gorgan, Sarah Flezk and Michelle Zolpho talk with a Beacon News reporter about not going to school Friday because of a threat found at the school.

(Marianne Mather/Staff photographer)

» Click to enlarge image A police officer stands watch at the entrance to Geneva High School Friday as school was let out for the day. The school had additional security in place due to a threat found written on a bathroom wall.
(Marianne Mather/Staff photographer)

RELATED STORIES• Web site: Geneva Schools

That's because about 70 percent of the school's students stayed home in the wake of a vague threat of violence at the school Friday.

Reed was among the 30 percent of parents who sent their kids to school, satisfied the Geneva High administration had taken appropriate precautions against any violence that might occur.

She also said while class sizes might have been smaller Friday -- it was reported some classes had as few as five students -- her daughter, a junior, learned something "just by going."

"We wanted to show her," Reed said. "I don't like to give in to that fear or intimidation. I felt we should support the school, support the administration."

Unusual class day
Geneva administrators limited the school to one access point all day, inspected handbags, purses and backpacks and kept them in the main office, limited movement by students, and cut off outside lunches and other reasons to leave the campus.
Administrators also worked closely with Geneva police, who had a greater presence at the school all day.

And the administration provided something extra -- free Dairy Queen ice cream for the students at lunch time. Reed said one of her daughter's teachers even allowed her to call her mother during the day.

"I thought that was a wonderful thing to do," Reed said.

Safety measures
Early Friday morning, district Superintendent Kent Mutchler was at the front door of the high school to greet students and open the door for them.
"If we're anything in Geneva, we're a caring community," he said. "The staff here really rallied and worked together."

By mid-morning, administrators, school staff and police already were formulating a plan for the future. By mid-afternoon, they had announced measures that would stay or go into effect Monday, and last indefinitely or "until this situation is resolved."

Those measures include:

• Extra care to control access into and out of Geneva High School. Access to the school will be only at the main entrance, on McKinley Avenue, or at the Logan Street entrance by the Mack Olson gym.

• Continued restrictions on student movement in the building.

• Continued searches of students and their property, although backpacks and purses will be permitted.

• Suspension of all lunch waivers. Field trips and off-campus classes will resume Monday.

"It's going to become a little more restrictive campus," Mutchler said. "We will more closely supervise comings and goings."

PTO meeting
On Thursday morning, officials discovered a message scrawled in a boy's bathroom that indicated a non-specific threat of violence on Friday. By Thursday night, the situation was the talk of an already-planned Parent-Teacher Organization meeting.
Beth Olson, PTO president, said there were all kinds of opinions at the meeting.

"I think most all people were upset that it happened at all," she said. "Some were very nervous -- genuinely very frightened."

Olson and her husband Steve, Geneva's fire chief, decided to send their child to school.

"A person who is going to do something bad is not going to give 24 hours warning like that," Beth Olson said. "It was someone who wanted attention, who wanted a reaction. I suspect the person didn't realize how much of a reaction it would get."

Students hang out
Four sophomore girls who gathered at Caribou Coffee on Third Street in Geneva Friday afternoon said they were not in class because their parents held them out.
Aimee Fizor said she believed the situation was "blown out of proportion," and said she will be back in school Monday.

"I'm definitely going back," she said.

"No one (among students) knew whether to take it seriously or not," said Michelle Zolpho.

Mutchler said the school and Geneva police will continue to investigate the specific threat made, and "get to the bottom of it." He said finding the nature of the threat will give everyone more peace of mind.

"Every threat has to be analyzed," he said. "But the intent for harm was strong. We need to be balanced. We don't want to go overboard, but at the same time we want to take appropriate measures."

In Kaneland schools Thursday, rumors were spreading about threats of violence, but administrators investigated and found nothing credible. The Kaneland district did not hold classes Friday because of a teacher institute day.

[gatordog]

warriorpride said:

I'd be interested in other parent's thought on this. I would never put my children in a situation that I or they thought was unsafe. However, if I put myself in this situation, I think that, with controlled access, limited bags, potential search, and police presence, the school would be safer that day than any other day during the year.

Sounds like the admin and police did what they had to do. Its hard to say what I would do as a parent not being in there shoes. I am usually of the mind in situations like this that its not the "devil you do know" to worry about its the "devil you dont know".

But one question is, how long can they sustain this kind of security presence there? How long should they? Things like no backpacks etc.

This gets back to something we talked about a while ago. I am GLAD we have police around our HS's on a regular basis. Thats a positive. It has nothing to do with image its safety.

[wvhsparent]

From a Police perspective.....we tend to overprepare and over-mobilize on things like this.

[momto4]

My husband and I were talking about that and it seems like the people who are really a threat don't announce it first.

There seem to have been a surprisingly large number of incidents causing problems with school attendance in local districts this year including letting air out of tires and threats being made.

[wvhsparent]

momto4 said:

My husband and I were talking about that and it seems like the people who are really a threat don't announce it first.

There seem to have been a surprisingly large number of incidents causing problems with school attendance in local districts this year including letting air out of tires and threats being made.

This is very true...