'Nobody feels safe': Students, parents demand more security measures at Illinois school

Some parents and students in the Highland Park area are demanding the installation of metal detectors, and want Township High School District 113 to hire armed security as mass shootings continue to inflict death and fear around the country.

The demands follow an intense lockdown on April 4 after a Highland Park High School student brought a gun to the building minutes after students staged a walkout to protest gun violence, and the District 113 school board called a special security meeting on Tuesday.

About 40 parents, students, media and district staff crammed into District 113′s board room, some ripping the board for perceived inaction and complacency on security.

"We're not here to talk about gun control. We're not here to talk about mental health. I could talk all day," Suzi Wahl said ahead of the meeting. "We are here for the safety of District 113 students."

Highland Park High freshman Star Hall, who wants metal detectors and armed guards, recalled the day after the lockdown last week and said, "Nobody feels safe.

"The next day, we had school and there was like sensory help, and service dogs and whatever, but there was no real action taken to ... improve our safety," she said.

Hall said she believes that people hesitant or opposed to installing metal detectors and hiring armed security, "want to act like we're in some safe haven, some gated community."

"But things happen all the time," she said.

Many residents in Highland Park say they have been fearful of sending their children to school since a man used an assault-style weapon to kill seven and injure dozens at the city's Fourth of July parade last summer.

Hall's mother, Diana, said she wondered whether the photo Star sent of herself during the lockdown might be the last picture she would ever see of her daughter alive.

Each day, she said, she sends her first grader out to school, fully fitted with a bulletproof backpack she bought after the July 4 massacre.

"The only issue with all of those is they don't protect against the high-powered rifles," Diana Hall said. "They'll stop a .45, but not an assault-rifle round."

A painful discussion

During the meeting, board members and District 113 Superintendent Bruce Law emphasized that they care deeply for students, and are working and researching diligently on how to continue to improve security and safety in the district, after already implementing changes when students returned to school last fall.

Law said there are also some changes and considerations that the school district has made or has in the works, but cannot broadcast publicly so as not to inform any potential attackers of specifics they could use to hurt people.

School board member Jaime Barraza told the crowd the board shares its fears and it is, "something that is weighing very heavily" in its decisions and work.

"Believe me, I understand the want to have those answers," Barraza said. "The fear of sending your child to school every day, the fear of sending a spouse to school everyday is a very difficult one. The fear of going to a parade, the fear of going to a public space, is a very real one. Know that is something that is weighing very heavily."

Barraza and other board members said they too are parents and grandparents of children in the area who have to reckon with sending their kids to school each day.

Board member Jodi Shapira said the board weighs relevant research and input from think tanks when crafting its security measures.

"The reality is, what just went on with (the mass shooting in) Louisville, it was a bank with armed people," Shapira said. "The reaction can never be as quick as the person who is trying to hurt us. That being said, I think we need to keep looking at what else we can do."

Shapira said that research the board has reviewed since July 4 showed metal detectors to be "not effective at that point," but board President Ken Fishbain reassured the crowd that the board will continue to look at options and, "see if the research has changed."

Fishbain said the district also considered adopting metal detectors after a man killed 17 students and staff at a Parkland, Florida high school in 2018.

Board member Dan Struck said the United States is, "facing an epidemic. We're facing a sickness in our society," about mass shootings, he said.

"And we're not the experts on it," he said. "There are think tanks, foundations, government agencies that have been looking at these issues for 20 years now. We need to look to their guidance."

Struck also said the district needs to "look at equity" for its students when considering security measures. While some in the community may favor adding more guns and metal detectors to the school, others might disagree.

"There are students who don't feel the same way as a lot of us might, who have different experiences," Struck said. "That needs to be taken into account as well."

Books, chairs and sledgehammers

Parent Jenny Harjung said she has been advocating for metal detectors since the summer. She has seen her son researching bulletproof backpacks, and wants the district to "buckle down" on security.

"My son sent me a picture, and it was it was just barricaded chairs everywhere (around) the door," Harjung told the board. "These kids shouldn't ever be in a predicament like that, but they are doing what they can in that moment to protect themselves."

William Dahms, another parent, said his daughter called from the floor of her physics class, where she was, "praying because a criminal with a gun was allowed on campus."

"Her teacher had a sledgehammer in his hand at the door in case the assailant was going to be coming through," Dahms said. "The kids had books they were going to throw."

Dahms called for confirmation of the identity of the student who brought the gun, and demanded they be banned from District 113 for life.

Longtime Deerfield High School teacher and Highland Park parent Marty Esgar said he wanted to show his appreciation for everyone's actions during the lockdown, including the scene described by Dahms.

Esgar emphasized, "You should never have to do that."

District 113 now has six, full-time security guards working the building, and the district already had at least one Highland Park police officer working as a school resource officer when the lockdown occurred last week.

Board members said they have ensured there is a Highland Park police department presence at the school at all times, and when officers are sick the district ensures they get a replacement that day.

Shortly after a commenter called for his firing, Law explained that District 113 has been consulting about security with entities like the State Terrorism and Intelligence Center as it collects research and continues to make new investments in security.

"Just let that sit with you for a minute," Law said. "This is where we get info about these things."

He said the school is doing its best to deal with a problem that originates "outside our walls" and "comes at our schools."

"No one got into this business to have to be focusing on these issues; no one," he added. "Students don't come to school for these reasons. We didn't get into this business to be dealing with this, and yet this is life in the United States in 2023."

Deerfield parent Michelle Bernstein said armed guards, "might not protect all lives, but they will buy time" for local police to arrive.

She said it would be unreasonable for the board to expect, "an immediate local or federal law to change soon," given the current status quo, and the board in the meantime should act within its means.

"The one thing we agree on," Bernstein said, "is come hell or high water, there is nothing we wouldn't do to save our kids."

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