Crime & Safety

School Safety Expert Briefs Local Districts in Crisis Preparation

School administrators and law enforcement personnel from around La Grange and Western Springs gathered at Plymouth Place Thursday for a seminar by safety consultant Kenneth Trump.

No one wants to think about a tragedy such as the Sandy Hook shootings happening in our own schools—but it's critical to prepare for a scenario we hope will never befall us.

That was the message school safety expert Kenneth Trump delivered to local school administrators and law enforcement personnel Thursday at Plymouth Place in La Grange Park.

Trump is a nationally known consultant who has worked with schools in all 50 states, as well as countries such as Canada and Israel. He's a frequent TV commentator on school security issues for programs such as The Today Show20/20 and the CBS Evening News.

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La Grange Park Village President Jim Discipio said the idea for the seminar was born after the Sandy Hook massacre when he asked Police Chief Dan McCollum what the village could do to protect its students.

“This is an effort to demonstrate our commitment as a village and as our school districts to ensuring the safety of our children,” he said.

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Representatives from District 95, District 102, District 106, District 107, Lyons Township High School and Nazareth Academy came to the program, as well as administrators from a number of districts as far away as Barrington 220. Law enforcement from a number of agencies, including La Grange Park, Western Springs and Brookfield were also present.

District 95 Superintendent Mark Kuzniewski said that last year’s annual school safety meeting for area districts fell shortly after Sandy Hook.

“As we sat around a room of about 50 people, what became evident was that nobody really had the exact answer to what a school safety plan should look like, specifically for intruders with a gun,” he said. After that meeting, he said he talked to McCollum about bringing in someone with a national record in school safety consulting to help the schools prepare for the unthinkable.

And the key to that preparation, Trump said, is addressing the risks that are foreseeable.

“We’ve got tunnel vision focus,” he said. “That’s how we’re looking at school security after Sandy Hook. ‘He came in the front door—we have to fortify the front door.’ If you’re upgrading that, I’m not knocking that, but don’t forget the rest of the place.”

Along those same lines, teachers, staff and students need to be vigilant about who they let into their buildings—and parents can be a partner in that by not getting offended when they have to sign into the school like everyone else.

“It’s supervision, it’s knowing your kids, it’s knowing what’s normal,” he said. “If it doesn’t feel right, go with your gut feeling and report it.”

Parents should not shy away from frank discussions with their children about safety, he said, especially after tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombings. Even if they don’t hear about it from you, they will hear it from other children at school.

Often, children aren’t nearly as traumatized by these conversations as parents imagine they will be—Trump said his own daughter compared a lockdown drill to “hide and seek in the dark.”

Trump also challenged administrators to diversify their safety drills by holding them at different times of the day or without warning teachers in advance. While a drill during lunch or morning arrival may be inconvenient, it will also test the staff’s ability to adapt.

Gimmicks such as bulletproof whiteboards or instructing kids to charge an assailant—as some districts elsewhere are doing—won’t ultimately keep students safe, Trump said.

“This message today is very simple,” he said. “Focus on the fundamentals. … The first and best line of defense is a well-trained, highly alert staff and student body. That’s priceless.”

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