Post by doctorwho on Dec 11, 2008 12:04:37 GMT -6
www.suburbanchicagonews.com/naper....NSIE_S2.article
December 11, 2008
By STEVE LORD The Beacon News
They were words and symbols to send chills down a parent's spine.
"somethgs wrng @ skool if something happens just knw that I LOVE YOU!!!"
That was sent via cell phone text message by a Waubonsie Valley High School student to his grandfather just before 8 a.m. Wednesday as the student learned his school was under lockdown.
The message Sheri Lee got from her daughter, also about 8 a.m. said, simply, "I knew I shouldn't have come to school today. We're on total lockdown."
While these words were chilling, the words that made some parents angry came later - too much later, they said - from school officials. More than an hour after those texts came an official telephone recording from Kristine Marchiando, Waubonsie Valley principal, saying that while the students were under lockdown, everyone was safe and there was no threat.
Some parents said this understated the threat possibility at the school, and it did not explain enough to parents about why their kids were locked in classrooms, on the floor or in closets, in the dark.
"I did save one of the recordings, and it said clearly, it was just precautionary," Lee said. "But it was not just precautionary. We didn't know what was going on."
Eventually, police found a BB gun and brought two 15-year-old sophomores in for questioning connected to the possible threat at the Aurora school. While that denotes a situation much less serious than what some were thinking, parents thought the messages downplayed the situation even further.
"I got three or four calls, and it was always the same thing," Lee said. "The downplay was there."
Other parents thought so, too, and voiced their concerns to officials from the Aurora police and the Indian Prairie School District as they briefed parents in a staging area in the Eola Road Community Center just north of the high school.
As officials said one thing, parents were getting text information from students saying another thing. Some of the texts reported the continuing lockdown, some reported information they were hearing from other students who were texting information to each other.
Because officials were fearful some of that information was incorrect and just rumor, officials got word to teachers inside the school to try to discourage students from texting. That, in turn, made parents in the staging area angrier, saying now they were cut off from their students.
"I can't believe you would tell someone not to text," an upset parent yelled. "Now I've lost touch with my daughter."
Not all parents were upset. Chris Martin, who has a daughter at the school, said she "has to commend the Aurora police for keeping us well-informed."
"This kind of thing is disconcerting; I mean, Columbine runs through your mind," Martin said. "We feel extremely helpless."
Roger Love, who has a son and a daughter at the school, said it's time school officials "drop their pride" and put metal detectors at the school for students to pass through every day.
"Kids' safety is more important," he said. "We need to prevent this kind of b.s. from happening."
Part of the concern by parents was the apparent confusion over two different threats at the school. One came Tuesday night, when officials found a bomb threat scrawled on a wall. The school sent out a recorded message Tuesday night informing parents of the threat, and said parents had the option of having students attend Wednesday. It is unknown at this time if the BB gun incident is connected to the scrawled threat.
Parents said communication from the school during the day should have better separated the two threats, and given more detail.
"I don't know if they could have done anything else; there would have been panic one way or the other," Lee said. "But communications were terrible."
Sun-Times News Group
December 11, 2008
By STEVE LORD The Beacon News
They were words and symbols to send chills down a parent's spine.
"somethgs wrng @ skool if something happens just knw that I LOVE YOU!!!"
That was sent via cell phone text message by a Waubonsie Valley High School student to his grandfather just before 8 a.m. Wednesday as the student learned his school was under lockdown.
The message Sheri Lee got from her daughter, also about 8 a.m. said, simply, "I knew I shouldn't have come to school today. We're on total lockdown."
While these words were chilling, the words that made some parents angry came later - too much later, they said - from school officials. More than an hour after those texts came an official telephone recording from Kristine Marchiando, Waubonsie Valley principal, saying that while the students were under lockdown, everyone was safe and there was no threat.
Some parents said this understated the threat possibility at the school, and it did not explain enough to parents about why their kids were locked in classrooms, on the floor or in closets, in the dark.
"I did save one of the recordings, and it said clearly, it was just precautionary," Lee said. "But it was not just precautionary. We didn't know what was going on."
Eventually, police found a BB gun and brought two 15-year-old sophomores in for questioning connected to the possible threat at the Aurora school. While that denotes a situation much less serious than what some were thinking, parents thought the messages downplayed the situation even further.
"I got three or four calls, and it was always the same thing," Lee said. "The downplay was there."
Other parents thought so, too, and voiced their concerns to officials from the Aurora police and the Indian Prairie School District as they briefed parents in a staging area in the Eola Road Community Center just north of the high school.
As officials said one thing, parents were getting text information from students saying another thing. Some of the texts reported the continuing lockdown, some reported information they were hearing from other students who were texting information to each other.
Because officials were fearful some of that information was incorrect and just rumor, officials got word to teachers inside the school to try to discourage students from texting. That, in turn, made parents in the staging area angrier, saying now they were cut off from their students.
"I can't believe you would tell someone not to text," an upset parent yelled. "Now I've lost touch with my daughter."
Not all parents were upset. Chris Martin, who has a daughter at the school, said she "has to commend the Aurora police for keeping us well-informed."
"This kind of thing is disconcerting; I mean, Columbine runs through your mind," Martin said. "We feel extremely helpless."
Roger Love, who has a son and a daughter at the school, said it's time school officials "drop their pride" and put metal detectors at the school for students to pass through every day.
"Kids' safety is more important," he said. "We need to prevent this kind of b.s. from happening."
Part of the concern by parents was the apparent confusion over two different threats at the school. One came Tuesday night, when officials found a bomb threat scrawled on a wall. The school sent out a recorded message Tuesday night informing parents of the threat, and said parents had the option of having students attend Wednesday. It is unknown at this time if the BB gun incident is connected to the scrawled threat.
Parents said communication from the school during the day should have better separated the two threats, and given more detail.
"I don't know if they could have done anything else; there would have been panic one way or the other," Lee said. "But communications were terrible."
Sun-Times News Group
