District 64 Security

I put the below together which is addressing some common concerns that have been presented to me and my responses, it is a bit long but this is a complicated subject. It goes back and forth between question and my response paragraph by paragraph. Please reach out with support, we need you to voice it, or any questions as we need to keep this dialogue going. Let us come and reason together and be proactive here. salgalati@gmail.com

Have you been following the contentious effort to establish the SRO program in the middle schools? It is still unresolved and about to go into committee work. My guess is that the Board is not equipped to take on the issue on an even broader scale adoption until resolving the current debate -- but the issues to be examined certainly apply to both middle and elementary.

I am just immersing myself, but have been talking to the board and they directed me to the meetings where this was addressed, and I went through those meetings and base my opinions on the material I have reviewed and most importantly real world events and actual application of security.

The district has a section on their website with documents and draft intergovernmental agreements for the currently adopted but not finalized program, including a report with background information and recommendations from the Ekl lawfirm (represents the family of a young man in Naperville schools who committed suicide after being questioned by their SRO). I have not gone through this and will, I am sure there is more to the story that he was questioned and committed suicide. Not to make light of it, but this cannot be the only factor in him feeling this way.

I am more amenable to the idea of pure security than SRO programs, though I still think we need a healthy debate on whether armed police presence is a rational solution to the threat or more of an emotional comfort. I tend to think it is the later, but my heartstrings pull as hard as anyone else's when it comes to keeping my child safe. I'm undecided. I do not think it is an emotional comfort I think it is a rational deterrent and the best solution we have available while we live in this world where there are disturbed people and they have the ability to get their hands on these weapons. Can you propose a more effective way of stopping someone who enters the building willing to do harm?

Here are some stories where the officer did exactly what we would want to be done and countless lives were spared. https://patch.com/illinois/across-il/dixon-high-school-police-responding-incident https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/us/great-mills-high-school-shooting/index.html https://www.policeone.com/juvenile-crime/articles/230160006-Fla-officer-stops-potential-mass-school-shooting/ http://concealednation.org/2018/04/school-resource-officer-stops-school-shooting-in-ocala-florida-on-friday-no-media-praise/ https://www.denverpost.com/2013/12/14/arapahoe-high-school-shooting-gunman-intended-to-harm-many-at-school/ Although these stories are not nearly as publicized they have happened.

If we had the resources, a security guard / off-duty officer on each campus would be fine with me. It has averted disaster in a documented cases, and certainly were that my child -- I would be eternally grateful for the officer's presence. I understand the perspective "if it saves even one child ..." but we have to be reasonable about the fact that we do not have unlimited resources and need to make smart decisions.

Whether officers at every school is a rational allocation of school resources, I am not sure. Shootings are horrific and highly salient, but still statistically very uncommon and typically committed by a current or former student with mental health issues and access to a parent's gun. Whatever actions are taken, we need to focus the lion's share of attention on getting to the source of the problem, in my opinion. Spotting those kids sooner and intervening appropriately seems the most vitally important course of action to pursue, in my opinion.

I completely agree here, the community needs to step up and parent their children, be present and observant of them and their friends and not be afraid to say something if they notice something unsettling. I am not saying we do not do that but we can always do better and this is for the nation in general. Too often, it seems that the neighborhood knows the people are capable of violence before they act on it. We obviously must respect privacy and rights, but we need to also use some common sense and alert school and police when we sense something is not right.

Many of these shooters are suicidal. They don't care if an officer is there to shoot them, so long as they can injure or kill as many people as possible before being stopped. And with the firepower of the weapons so often in their hands, that does not take much time. An officer cannot cover the entire school at one time.

Exactly to my point and shared by police I have discussed this with. The response time of 4 - 6 minutes is enough time to lead to huge loss of life. Yes, they are suicidal, but they kill themselves after the authorities have arrived and they want to maintain control of the situation and take their own lives rather than be taken into custody or be killed by the police. They do not stop or kill themselves prior to this. Of course, no one can cover the whole school all the time, but it is obvious that the response time will be much quicker than if an officer had to be called to the school. To argue that since the officer could not be everywhere at once we do not consider it would be illogical.

There was an officer at Parkland.

In this instance, we have a question of character, we need to pick the right people as in any job. Make sure this is a sincere person, who wants to protect life and is not motivated by any other factors. I do not want to question anyone’s integrity or motivation, but I think this story speaks for itself.

There was an officer at Columbine. And we still had terrible loss of life.

Columbine was a shock to the nation and made the once thinkable, conceivable. I was not at their school board meetings when they decided to put security in place but I doubt they had the training or expectation to deal with this tragedy. I am sure their role was more likely to control drug use, and inter-student fighting, etc.

It is hard as a parent to admit that some things are truly out of our control.

Ultimately that is a lesson we all learn one way or another in this life but does not mean we lay down. We engage, inform, and let the best ideas rise to the surface. Just want to make sure we get off looking at this as my side and their side and realizing adjusting or changing our opinions on this does not mean we lost. We will all win if we stay honest and respectful and hold to the truth.