(Editor’s note: This story was updated on May 23 to reflect that changes to the middle schools academic schedule were planned over the past year and will be implemented this fall. Also clarified was the timing of a new intergovernmental agreement between Oak Park police and districts 97 and 200. That IGA was approved in 2023.)
Early June 2024 was a time of reckoning for Oak Park Elementary School District 97.
After a contentious school board meeting in late May, where parents and teachers expressed concerns about a number of safety-related issues at Percy Julian and Gwendolyn Brooks middle schools, district administrators had to reassess.
How could the district increase safety for everyone at those schools?
The key was not only implementing new policies and procedures, administrators say, but fostering a culture change focused on connection and experience.
That has led to a safer environment for learning at both schools, according to district superintendent Dr. Ushma Shah, Dr. Luis De Leon, assistant superintendent of middle schools, and district chief safety officer Dr. Felicia Starks.
Wednesday Journal met with those administrators to talk about how the changes have impacted the 2024-25 school year.
A focus on connection
Imagine a triangle, with teachers and staff at the base, angling upward toward administrators at the fulcrum.
“It’s really about establishing the base of that triangle,” Shah said, “Tier 1 core systems around safety and connection and academic learning and meaningful kinds of experiences and a sense of belonging. These are the things we’ve been focused on, and those aren’t tactical things, they are adaptive culture change things.”
For example, the district implemented the Middle School Connection program, which is a dedicated program for incoming sixth graders, to emulate the connections those students experienced at the elementary school level.
The program “has been an opportunity to review expectations with our students, but also to address the social-emotional needs of the students,” De Leon said, adding “going from one school setting (to) where you have four different elementaries coming into one new system” creates plenty of uncertainty and anxiety.
For three half-days before school started last August, he said, new sixth graders met with teachers and administrators to accomplish everything from understanding expectations to figuring out their locker combination. They were also able to meet each other, thus reducing the number of unfamiliar faces on the first day of school.
Schedule change plays role
Another change has been a redesign of the school day for the 2025-26 school year, incorporating insights from not only teachers and administrators, but parents and even students, with the intention of creating better connection between students and their teachers.
English/language arts (ELA), math, science and social science will get an additional hour of instruction per week, by shifting the previous A-day/B-day rotation to daily instruction. Students will also choose electives that they are interested in, both yearlong and trimester-based courses.
Additionally, lunch periods will include a What I Need (WIN) block, a dedicated time for students to receive targeted enrichment or intervention support. Both middle schools also follow the same bell schedule and offer the same courses, which leads to easier staff collaboration.
There are also five schoolwide behavior expectations for both middle schools:
- Cell phones are not allowed in class, reducing distractions.
- Backpacks belong in lockers.
- Mandating visible student identification badges.
- Establishing clear rules for movement and behavior in hallways and bathrooms.
- Structured expectations during lunch prevents conflicts.
D97 relationship with Oak Park police
District 97 decided to discontinue police-provided school resource officers (SROs) during the Covid-19 pandemic, which Shah said led to a strained relationship with the Oak Park Police Department. Many school districts removed SROs after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
In 2023, District 97 entered into an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 and the police department which the district said was student centered and focused on school safety.
“Part of what came out of the IGA was that we would have these Monday safety meetings, between (me), one of the deputy chiefs and director of campus safety at OPRF,” Starks said of the virtual meetings. She said they are effective because they often discuss how the three entities can collaborate and generally keep each informed about what is happening on the ground.
The Handle with Care initiative is another partnership with the police department, which is leveraged if there is a traumatic event in the community which impacts a student. Police will send an email to dedicated addresses with the subject line Handle with Care.
“They share with us the student name, the date and the parent name, and then we create a whole flowchart of what happens from there,” Starks said. “It may be, just keep an extra eye on this student. If they see the student is in distress, then we bring our social workers in and other staff and maybe partner with outside agencies.”
Another area is an increased focus on restorative disciplinary practices, Shah said.
“That is a requirement of us not to be punitive,” she said, “because the research is clear we need to get to the root causes and changing behavior, so really thinking about how do we operationalize that and how do we make sure that’s how we’re training our staff, to slow down and look at all the options and how we’re changing behavior.”
Another change has been the implementation of the Raptor Technologies’ VisitorSafe Visitor Management System, where anyone from outside of school, including parents, contractors and others, must sign in.
Have changes been effective?
Joel Blecha, a kindergarten teacher at Irving elementary school also has a seventh grader at Julian. Blecha spoke at that May 2024 board meeting. He said that things apparently have changed.
“We are not getting those kinds of emails,” Blecha said. “My son supported that; there are fights, but nowhere near the number of fights from last year.”
Pivoting away from the block schedule in 2025-26 should enhance this change.
“From folks I know that work at Julian, they said that the block schedules were linked to student misbehavior, because the kids couldn’t stand being in a class that long.”
But two other staff members at Brooks who spoke at the May 2024 school board meeting – a teacher and a social worker – declined comment for this story.
The Oak Park Teachers Association also declined an interview request and referred Wednesday Journal to a media relations spokesperson at the Illinois Education Association in Springfield, which declined to provide a statement regarding the matter.
And at the May 13 board of education meeting, parent Jacqueline Stinson spoke during the public comment period about her sixth-grader’s experience at Brooks, where he was allegedly surrounded by self-described gang members and threatened with a shooting. (See sidebar.)
When asked if Brooks and Julian middle schools are safe places for students and teachers, the answer from all three administrators was unambiguous and unanimous.
Yes.
One mom says her child faced gang threats at Brooks
On March 20, shortly before spring break, Brooks Middle School parent Jacqueline Stinson alleges that her sixth-grade son was surrounded by other students purported to be gang members, threatening to “Swiss-cheese” him.
Stinson knows what that means.
“You are going to use an automatic weapon with a switch, to allow you to shoot faster,” she said. “Saying you’re going to Swiss cheese somebody, that’s a threat. That’s saying I’m going to kill you.”
Stinson said she brought her concerns to Brooks administration, and was told that it was just talk.
She begs to differ.
“My son has been physically attacked by these gang members,” she said. “He was chased down one day with a belt. It was caught on camera. They threw a ball, hit him in his head. There was another time, an attack with pushing and shoving.”
Has student discipline changed over the last year?
“No, absolutely not,” she said. “What’s conveyed is, if my name was O’Malley or any other Caucasian name, I would be taken more seriously. Because I’m not viewed as an equal counterpart, I’m not taken seriously. Our cries fall on deaf ears.”
District 97’s provided a statement on the incident.
“While we cannot comment on specific student matters to ensure privacy and confidentiality, we want to emphasize that student safety and well-being are top priorities for District 97.
“We care deeply about parent feedback and experiences, and we are committed to fostering safe, supportive environments where all students feel valued and all families feel heard. When concerns are brought to us, we follow established protocols to investigate and take appropriate action.”
