Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT could be any school in our Grayslake community, and right now they are devastated by the horrific scene left in the wake of a gunman who reportedly killed 27 people Friday morning, the majority being young children.
Local schools react
Patch reached out to Grayslake area schools for their reaction to this tragedy.
This afternoon, Grayslake High School District 127 conducted a moment of silence before students were released for the day.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and the entire community in Newton, CT. We are deeply saddened by this tragic event and ended the school day with a moment of silence in honor of the victims and their families," said D127 Supt. Catherine Finger.
Finger said school counselors will be available to support students as they end the semester next week together.
Regarding school safety, Finger said, "The health and safety of each and every student is our highest priority."
"While there is no plan that can totally prevent a random act of senseless violence like this, D127 has a school safety plan in place that has been reviewed by law enforcement authorities and practiced by faculty and staff.”
District 46 posted on its Website that emergency procedures are in place in each of its seven schools.
"Each school regularly practices emergency evacuation, shelter-in-place, and lock-down drills and remains in close communication with local fire and police departments about those procedures."
Woodland District 50 Superintendent Joy Swoboda said the district's thoughts were with the victims and their families. She too reflected on school security.
"Safety is our number one priority with our students and staff. We have comprehensive crisis procedures in place in the event of emergencies. These procedures are consistently practiced and evaluated with our staff, students and administrators in conjunction with the Gurnee Police Department and the Lake County Sheriff's Office," said Swoboda.
"As with any incident, there are always lessons learned. As those emerge, our procedures will be reviewed to implement those lessons learned as appropriate."
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My heart goes out to the families of the children in Connecticut. There is nothing more upsetting than this type of senseless violence. It is not the first time in my memory we have seen this type of attack. Our country trains our youth to be violent and it isn’t about guns. Now I expect we will see a direct attack on our countries U.S. Constitution by radical politico’s creating more laws that may face rebellion and that no one can enforce on a whole country. Isn’t it time we face the real issue. Yet the predictable starting point is always a charge against firearms because the second amendment is easier to attack than the first amendment. Ultra desensitized youth in America might be reduced by taking away and restricting ultra-violent video games, movies, and cable TV shows for children with mental issues. Perhaps the easier solution is to rate ultra-violent media and video games XXX and restrict their access to ages under 21. Think about it, a violent video game might include guns but what it certainly does is desensitize our youth an devalue the worth of life to a scene in a video game.
There is no constitutional crisis if we all agree to restrict the access to violent materials to those over the ages of 21 rather than ban everything for those over 21. Each time we encounter this issue the scream is guns. There are literally millions of them and few being shot by them we rarely face the question of mental illness and our the incredibly violent video games, movies, and other media played mostly by very young children. We teach them how to hunt a military enemy and kill that enemy. These mental unstable all dress in military body armor just like the video games. Let’s stop being idiots the answer is right in front of us. Young children should not have the same access to these materials as mature adults. Ever watch one, most of us adults don’t we just buy them and some forget to supervise their children. The video game reality is precise, the quality impeccable and they encourage and teach carnage as they de-sensitive our youth, even the normal children, to violence and death and whatever your view on guns the real issue is that we as a society are teaching violence and if they didn’t have guns they would use bombs.
There are hundreds of millions of firearms in the U.S. alone and most children that eventually become adults don’t go out and shoot anyone. However, you link to these same children a mental illness, a poverty community, a gang culture of uneducated children, or a drug culture in the inner cities, and these same ultra-violent media forms and video games distort reality and become their teacher. In the streets of Chicago it is generally the very young men that are shooting each other. Each probably raised by a television in a single parent home many with ultra-violent video media and surrounded by other gang members worshipping and living the drug culture of carnage. Folks it isn’t guns, they are only the tool of the ill and you don’t restrict a country when you really need to address the violence. If we didn’t have guns they would find an alternate and perhaps throw Molotov cocktails. How do we solve this? Laws won’t stop it, they will black market anything you decide to prohibit. That is a fools game.