Safety Message from Superintendent Kaczkowski
I would like to take this opportunity to share a bit more information about safety at Board meetings and to hopefully help everyone understand the decision the Board of Education made to have a police officer attend Board meetings.
As superintendent, I am ultimately responsible for the safety and security of all students, staff members, and visitors to our district. This responsibility extends to Board meetings. After having staff members, visitors and community members share their concern with personal safety at the meetings, the decision was made to reach out to the Glen Ellyn Police Department to see if they could support safety by sending an officer to our next couple of meetings. As always, they were and continue to be a valuable source of support to D41.
After I consulted with the Glen Ellyn Police Department, I also reached out to my superintendent colleagues, members of our District Threat Assessment Team, and our threat assessment consultant, Dr. Nancy Zarse. For those of you who may not be familiar with a new law that requires all school districts to establish a Threat Assessment Plan and team, I am including a link to information provided by our district legal counsel. I am also providing a link to provide a deeper understanding of Threat Assessment. All of these resources agreed that, as a school district, we have very few tools available to us to maintain an expectation of civil discourse at public meetings. When that discourse takes on a level of intensity, there are people who do not feel personally safe. In this day and age, D41 cannot dismiss those concerns. We have an obligation to do what we can to respond to them and work to ensure that everyone in the room feels safe and welcome. One of my goals is to have staff and students attend our meetings. The Board and the community deserves to hear from those directly engaged in great work with our students. The Board and community deserves to hear directly from those whom we serve, our students. If we want to establish an environment where this is possible, we need to strive for meetings that foster civil discourse. Healthy and productive disagreement is possible when the conversation is about issues and not people. I am a firm believer that difficult and challenging questions, when offered in the spirit of improvement, only makes us better. We are committed to improvement and not just celebrations.
The Board of Education discussed this in Closed Session because it pertains to safety. A decision was made to continue to request that an officer attend the meetings and to be transparent about it. It is important to note that we are not pulling an officer off the streets and away from their policing responsibilities. We are paying for an officer’s time when they are off duty. There may be times when they do not have an officer who can attend. We are not obligated to continue this arrangement and I am certain that the Board will continue to discuss the need. The District will continue to develop our Threat Assessment Plan and teams under the guidance of Dr. Nancy Zarse. We have done extensive work this year in the area of safety, emergency preparedness, crisis and threats and we will continue to explore resources that directly impact students and families. This is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
It takes us all to keep our schools and community safe. Thank you for your continued support and thank you to the Glen Ellyn Police Department.
Dr. Melissa Kaczkowski
Superintendent
