DeKalb District 428 schools forced into ‘emergency status’ amid local gun violence. Here’s what that means

DeKALB – Four DeKalb School District 428 schools were forced to take emergency precautions this week after dangerous gun violence erupted in broad daylight near their campuses, resulting in one person shot and another killed.

The precautionary “community emergency status” officials initiated amid the gun violence called for schools to shutter their doors and bar entry to visitors.

“The purpose of this is to make sure that we’re safe,” DeKalb Superintendent Minerva Garcia-Sanchez said.

Violence started this week when one teen was shot in the back near Founders Elementary School. A 13-year-old DeKalb male was charged Thursday with attempted first-degree murder stemming from that shooting, police said. A 14-year-old who allegedly also was involved has been charged related to the Monday afternoon shooting, DeKalb police said Thursday.

In an unrelated shooting, a man was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon not far from DeKalb High School and Jefferson Elementary.

The protocols initiated after both incidents, similar to a lockdown – although district officials prefer to use the different term – prohibit anyone from entering a school building. They require anyone outside the building who is in the school’s care, such as students, staff or teachers, to return inside until further notice. DeKalb police and school resource officers act as additional security on site in and around the buildings, Garcia-Sanchez said.

On Tuesday night, a woman was shot just a block over on Ridge Drive. While the incident did not result in any reaction from the school district, it was one of three occurrences with gunshot victims in a string of violence that beset DeKalb this week.

Neither teenager facing charges in Monday’s shooting were attending DeKalb schools at the time, Garcia-Sanchez said Thursday.

“Neither one of those teenagers have been in school this year,” Garcia-Sanchez said. “As of this year, neither one were in school in DeKalb.”

District 428 began its school year Aug. 18.

Monday’s incident in the 800 block of South Eighth Street forced nearby Founders Elementary School, 821 S. Seventh St., to halt planned afternoon dismissal and initiate what the district calls “community emergency status.”

Founders Elementary dismissal was initiated Monday under district and police supervision, Garcia-Sanchez said, and students who would normally walk home from school had to be picked up. Dismissal occurred at its normal time of 3:30 p.m. and took about a half hour under increased security supervision from DeKalb school police resource officers. Nearby Huntley Middle School, 1515 S. Fourth St., also was placed under a precautionary community emergency lockdown Monday.

Meanwhile, the fatal shooting Wednesday outside West Ridge Apartment complex that resulted in an 18-year-old’s death from a gunshot wound to the head resulted in precautions at DeKalb High School at 501 W. Dresser Road and Jefferson Elementary School at 211 McCormick Drive.

The West Ridge Apartment complex is about a mile from the high school and a little more than a mile from the elementary school. As a result, DeKalb police notified the district’s emergency crisis team that a shooting had occurred and a suspect was at large, and another community emergency protocol was initiated.

“What we didn’t want is for those individuals to end up in a place where other people were standing or mixed into a place where they weren’t able to be found,” Garcia-Sanchez said.

School was out for the day by the time the shooting occurred about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday. However, adults were still in the building at Jefferson, Garcia-Sanchez said, and DeKalb High School was filled with planned afternoon sports events, which were temporarily delayed.

The district’s community emergency protocols are one of the latest byproducts to come as a result of a school safety audit recently conducted earlier this year, to better direct district officials on safety mitigations in the event of a crisis.

The use of the word “community emergency” is meant to convey to parents, and the public, that a perceived threat outside (not inside) of the school has been identified, Garcia-Sanchez said. In an event, buildings are locked down as a result of the exterior threat until school and police officials can gauge next steps.

“We don’t call it a lockdown. So when we talk about it being a community emergency issue, that tells you that something is happening out there, and we are taking precautions to make sure our folks are safe,” Garcia-Sanchez said. “If the children are in school, they’re my responsibility, as are school leaders and school teachers. We need to make sure we keep them safe.

The superintendent said district staff and students are trained and under certain expectations through the District 428′s code of conduct to vet for risks.

“There are a number of mitigation efforts that we have that support any kind of movement into the building, whether it’s a weapon or drugs or anything else that doesn’t belong in a school,” she said. “Anything can happen, right? So we’re being very extra cautious and everybody has been trained or is in process of being trained to detect certain things. So we are working towards making sure that we’re always keeping each other safe.”