The Board of Education for the Oak Park Elementary School District 97 will continue to educate district families and the community about secure gun storage after it approved a policy formalizing the effort.
The Jan. 30 approval was unanimous.
“We stand with our families, community members and agency partners in collective efforts to increase safety in Oak Park,” said Supt. Ushma Shah. “This board policy introduces a new component to our holistic approach to school safety, which is annually using our district channels to raise awareness about secure gun storage as an important public health issue.”
The approved, revised policy included a change from using the phrase “safe storage” to “secure storage,” and references the village’s ordinance on safe storage of firearms, passed in July 2023. It states “all firearms within the Village of Oak Park must be secured by a locking device.”
The ordinance also says that “only the person authorized to carry or control the firearm may know the combination or the location of the key of the locking device,” and that firearms left unattended in a vehicle in plain view are not considered secure.
In the revision, D97 reiterated that providing students with a “learning environment that ensured their emotional and physical safety” was a deep core value and acknowledged that districts around the country have been increasingly adopting policies committing them to education parents and guardians to why secure gun storage education was important to minimize gun violence as well as school and community threats.
While the district had already been providing information to families, including by sharing information from community partners, some parents felt that more was needed from the district. Some spoke about that during the public comment portion of the meeting.
“What often happens is that you get fired up about something, get something done but then if there is no system to keep it going it gets forgotten,” said Katherine Thurman, an educator and parent of children in Oak Park. “We really appreciate what the district has done…we know you are supportive of safe gun storage, but to be truly effective we need consistency and prioritization.”
With the adoption of the new policy, the board and district officials said they memorialize the district’s commitment to student safety, and that this will ensure efforts are consistent.
Some steps taken by the district were highlighted in the memorandum, including:
- Strengthening the social and emotional learning supports by “investing in a Multi-Tiered System of Support framework”
- Collaborating with community partners, including the village, the Oak Park Police Department, Oak Park Department of Public Health, and the high school district
- Reviewing and drafting communications about secure gun storage with village staff who are experts in public health
The approval of the policy was met with applause and cheering from community members who had spoken out in support during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Local Moms Demand Action member Jenna Leving Jacobson, who had been advocating for firearm storage safety and for D97 to join in on the movement, said she was glad the school board “finally took the time to vote on the policy.”
Jacobson added that she was hopeful that D200 and other neighboring districts would soon follow suit.
Five days before the board meeting, the White House announced new executive actions to help promote the safe storage of firearms through an executive order.
The need for this was highlighted through not only the growing number of school shootings that have occurred in the past years, but also the connection gun related incidents have to firearms kept in a household.
“Approximately 4.6 million children live in homes with unsecured firearms,” the White House said in a statement. “Studies show that safe storage can dramatically reduce children’s risk of self-inflicted harm and unintentional shootings.”
According to a 2019 report called “U.S secret service analysis of targeted school violence,” from the U.S Department of Homeland Security’s National Threat Assessment Center, 76% of school shootings are committed with guns from the home.
It also shows that 80% of firearm suicides by children involve a gun belonging to a family member. Firearm suicide amongst children and teens has increased 66% in the past decade.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced actions to promote safe storage that included sending letters to school principals to encourage district-family communication, a communications template issued by the U.S. Department of Education to help schools engage with families, and a guide from the U.S Department of Justice that provides “expertise on different types of storage devices and best practices for safely storing firearms.”
The DOJ also announced new grant funds that will be available through the “STOP School Violence Program,” for schools to promote awareness of safe storage.
Grant funds have also been available through the DOJ’s Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program for law enforcement offices to purchase gun locks and storage devices to distribute.
Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 has been in conversation with D97 and the village for several months, said Karin Sullivan, executive director of communications for D200.
“We’ve heard the recent call from the U.S. Department of Education for school leaders to educate the school community about safe firearm storage,” she said. “Our policy committee, comprising two board members and several administrators will discuss the issue next week, and we anticipate a full board discussion later this semester.”
In other news:
In an unrelated event, Brooks Middle School Principal April Capuder notified parents Feb, 2 that a student the day before made threats about bringing a gun to school. Two other students reported the incident.
“We immediately launched an investigation into the situation, and determined that there was no validity to the reported threat,” she said.
“While the threat ultimately proved to be unfounded, our team will continue to reinforce our safety expectations and protocols to ensure a positive, secure learning environment for our students,” Capuder added.
