LTHS Official Catches Error That Lingers Throughout State

LA GRANGE, IL – Lyons Township High School's policies call for officials to try to develop a relationship with at least one entity that no longer exists.

According to the provision, the superintendent or his designee is supposed to attempt to build ties with the Illinois Suicide Prevention Strategic Planning Committee and the Illinois Suicide Prevention Coalition Alliance.

During the school board's review of policies this week, member Kari Dillon said she tried to search online for the two groups, but had no success.

Most school districts, including the high school, enact policies that are word for word from the state school boards association.

Most boards hold occasional reviews of those policies. But for some reason, the confusion in the suicide policy has remained.

If you search online for the Illinois Suicide Prevention Strategic Planning Committee, the top item in Google is a 17-year-old state suicide prevention plan.

Around the time of that plan, a legislator introduced a bill that called for revising the committee's name to the Illinois Suicide Prevention Alliance, which is the name of the other agency listed in the board's policies. The change happened, and the alliance still meets, with sessions planned for February and May.

So the association-recommended policy lists both the old and new names as if they were separate entities. They are not.

This mistake has likely lingered in policies throughout Illinois for years, potentially more than a decade.

School officials said they would look into the problem with the policy.

"If these places don't exist, we shouldn't list them because they're not going to help us," Dillon told her colleagues.