Hello Martin Elementary School families,
I want to thank all of our parents and families once more for your flexibility and support today. While I understand the inconvenience of these situations and the stress they can cause for both parents and your children, the safety of our students must always take precedence.
This morning, a threatening message was found in a different restroom than yesterday and indicated a gun was present in the school. When a message of this nature is reported, our safety response procedures go into action:
- This message was reported to our building administration and then our Chief Safety & Security Officer, who notified our district administration team and placed the building in a Hold in Place and Teach lockdown in order to keep students and staff safe while conducting a thorough search of school grounds.
- In the event of a lockdown, our safety and security team works directly with local law enforcement as they report to the school to ensure the safety of everyone in our building. Our district staff work in support of the police department as they lead their investigation.
- Once the building is secure, administrators use camera footage to determine who was in and out of the restroom in question and seek to identify them against the facts we have at the time.
- Yesterday and today, our administration interviewed anyone identified as entering the restroom in an effort to gain relevant details and/or identify a source of the message.
- At the conclusion of the investigation, appropriate disciplinary measures will be taken. These may include a variety of suspension/expulsion options, in addition to the possibility of police action.
These disruptions interfere with the learning of all students and create a feeling of fear associated with school. In short, they are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. As we strive to limit these instances in our building and communicate clear expectations to our students, we also take these situations seriously and must take action to ensure our learning environment is safe before we can respond with disciplinary or restorative action.
As this is the second investigation conducted in response to a threatening message being found in our building in the same number of days, we wanted to share some of the steps we are taking at Martin in an effort to prevent this from happening again.
- Teachers will be encouraged to build in classroom-wide bathroom breaks rather than allowing individual students to go as freely in order to increase the level of supervision surrounding student bathrooms.
- If a student needs to use the restroom or leave the classroom outside of the class-wide breaks, teachers will have each child sign out of the classroom with the time of departure and ensure they are not taking a writing utensil with them. This process is currently in place in the cafeteria and we will be expanding this to classrooms.
- We will also be adding some hall monitors who will hover in the area of the restrooms and will be checking the stalls following student use to verify nothing has been written on the stalls again.
Again, we ask that you please have a conversation with your students about what is appropriate at school and remind them to always reach out to a trusted adult in the building if they need support or see anything that poses a potential safety concern. We have a wide range of supports throughout the building and across the district, and our staff will be talking with our students about the proper ways to reach out for help if they need it.
In response to the events of this week, we will have increased police presence at Martin Elementary and the surrounding campus at the start of next week to provide an additional layer of safety for our students and staff. As a reminder, if you or your student need to get in touch with a trusted Huntley 158 staff member prior to Monday, please text our Student Helpline to get connected with someone who can help more immediately.
Thank you for your partnership, patience and willingness to aid in our efforts to keep Huntley 158 schools safe for all of our students and staff.
Thank you,
Michele Happold
Principal
Scott Rowe, Ed.D.
Superintendent
