Hello Huntley High School students & families,
On Thursday evening, administration received multiple reports via the Student Helpline of racially motivated/threatening messages and a video from a single student that have been circulated on social media. These messages contained racist material, offensive language and a threat to a student’s safety. I’d like to start by making this very clear: this rhetoric will not be tolerated in our school community.
In response to this report, our administration immediately began working alongside Huntley 158’s safety and security team, as well as our campus resource officer, to investigate this incident further and determine if a threat exists. At this time, we have found no active threat to the safety of students or staff at HHS. Currently, we are working to gather as much information as possible in order to move forward with the appropriate steps to keep our students safe and confront the root cause of this behavior. Our team is in contact with the parents of those affected students and will continue to provide updates to those impacted families.
This type of behavior has a widespread impact across our school, district and community. The ideas that are represented in these posts cause real pain and harm. They are inexcusable and will not be accepted here. EVERY student at HHS deserves to come to school and feel safe amongst their peers and teachers. As the leader of this school, I am shocked, disappointed and hurt, but I also know this is not indicative of our student body or school community. We cannot let this display of racism deter the compassion and care that we, as Red Raiders, show one another each day. In the face of racism and hate, the only option we have is to come together with an even greater sense of unity and togetherness. I promise you that we will use this opportunity to continue to improve the culture of our school.
Our school should be a place where every student feels welcome to be themselves regardless of their race, religion, or sexual orientation. We must continue to work together to ensure that this learning environment becomes, and remains, our reality.
While the District cannot share details of any matters of student discipline, students, families, and our community should know that this incident is being taken with the highest level of seriousness. Our discipline process will follow the policies outlined in our student handbook and approved by our Board of Education. If you or your student need additional support or would like to discuss this matter further with a school administrator, please reach out to us at 847-659-6600. Thank you for reading.
Sincerely,
Dr. Marcus Belin
Principal
