Support will be plentiful as Highland Park students return to school after the worst of summers. ‘We’re here to serve these children.’

Homeroom period at Highland Park High School is normally a laid-back time, but when the bell rings Wednesday to mark the start of a new school year, Stephanie Diaz, a 16-year-old junior, expects to encounter an unusually heavy atmosphere.

In the wake of a mass shooting during an Independence Day parade in downtown Highland Park, the school has added layers of security and offered counseling to its students over the summer. But Diaz is still nervous.

”I know our school is somewhat safe, but you never know,” said Diaz, who helped form a local chapter of the anti-gun violence group Students Demand Action after the shooting, which left seven dead and dozens injured. “We have an assault weapon ban in Highland Park so I thought I was pretty safe, but we saw that’s not really the case.”

Administrators in Township High School District 113, which operates Highland Park and Deerfield high schools, have described an all-hands-on-deck approach with adequate support for students and staff as the new school year begins.

“We are trying to have a very focused recovery plan that is based on what students and staff say they need, while trying to have as much a normal school year as we can,” District 113 Superintendent Bruce Law said. “At the same time, we’re trying to have in place extra programming and support for staff and for students who need it.”

The local grade school district, which starts classes Aug. 24, is taking a similar approach after a summer of apprehension.

Susan Quaid-Brohan, a third grade teacher at Ravinia Elementary in North Shore School District 112, is eager to get back in the classroom.

She said she was afraid to go outside for days after the parade, where she watched some of her students in the procession. Quaid-Brohan recalled later getting a call from the parents of former students, who invited her to visit their house and attend a local baseball game.

“(The) kids got me to feel better about it,” she said Tuesday.

Quaid-Brohan said she views her profession as “a calling,” and that Highland Park teachers are dedicated to helping their students while still processing the horrors of July Fourth themselves.

“We’re here to serve these children, regardless of what the situation is,” Quaid-Brohan said.

She said Superintendent Mike Lubelfeld and District 112 personnel have worked to help staff address their own grief and trauma by offering resources “where each of us are individually.”

“I’ve read a lot of books about trauma and I’ve been trying to prepare myself for my kids,” Quaid-Brohan said. “It’s just such a wonderful community where everyone supports each other. There’s so much more love than unkindness.”

With school about to begin, Highland Park-area parents offered differing opinions on the local schools’ security precautions.

Ashbey Beasley, who has researched bulletproof backpacks and even clipboards for her 6-year-old son, said she has pushed for a bag ban for visitors to the elementary schools and metal detectors at the entrances.

Other parents are seeking armed guards, she said.

Not all parents want to go that route, she said, which has led to heated discussions in online forums.

”I hear everyone’s concerns about the metal detectors, but the bottom line is we go through them everywhere,” she said. “I’ve never seen a child upset by metal detectors, and we don’t have shootings at places that have metal detectors.”

Parent Carlos Perez-Turcios said he’s concerned the schools pose a “soft target” that could be easily breached.

”We trust the people who are responsible for the school district,” he said. “We just want to make sure they do something more tangible when it comes to securing the buildings to deter potential shooters. At this point, most of us think it’s not if (an attack) is going to happen but when.”

Jordan Kane has a different view. Her daughter is about to start kindergarten in Highland Park, said she’s worried about the schools going overboard. She’s particularly concerned lockdown drills could stir up a sense of panic in children without providing clear benefits, citing research from Everytown for Gun Safety; she plans to keep her daughter home when they are scheduled.

Kane, who has worked in conflict zones such as Afghanistan and Yemen, said overbearing measures could “make our schools feel like jails, particularly (for) students of color and/or from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Other parents feel confident that the local school systems have capable administrators and the resources to pull off a safe school year in which students are supported and can thrive.

Amanda Newman trusts that school is one of the best places for her 8-year-old son, Benny, who attends Ravinia Elementary, and her 11-year-old daughter, Emily, who is attending Edgewood Middle School.

“I think (District 112) has been doing a great job,” Newman said. “I know that there have been several board meetings for additional safety measures they’re putting into place. They’re immediately on it.”

Newman said Highland Park is “so lucky” to have significant resources in the schools to support children, but said she wishes every community affected by shootings could receive the same outpouring of support and action after tragedy.

“It shouldn’t take the local superintendent to make kids feel safe in school,” Newman said. “We should have a country (in) that we feel safe in school.”

Marty Esgar, president of the District 113 Education Association, a teachers union that covers Highland Park and Deerfield high schools, said his members are concerned about students afflicted by a confluence of stressors — first the pandemic, then the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and finally the mass shooting in Highland Park.

”Even if people can somehow manage to cope with one thing, we’re nervous we’ll face a combination of trauma that will be evident in a number of kids,” he said.

But Esgar, who lives in Highland Park, said he’s glad the community used the high school as a home base for counseling services over the summer, believing the positive feelings generated there might carry over into the school year.

“A lot of us are hopeful that it might go better than what we had anticipated,” he said. “That said, we are nervous because until it happens and we meet our students, we will have no real idea.”

Lubelfeld told parents Aug. 12 that the district has been and continues to “align our safety and security and mental health practices based upon what experts tell us, based upon what specialists report to us and based upon evidence and research.”

He said the district is following recommendations by the Illinois Terrorism Task Force’s School Safety Working Group, including focusing on “behavioral assessments, hardening our facilities and response protocols.”

Lubelfeld has briefed District 112 parents on safety protocols over the last month and a half with email updates, video updates and even a pair of podcasts.

District 112 consists of two middle schools, seven elementary schools and an early child care center in Highland Park and Highwood.

Some security measures were taken last year. The district spent approximately $1.6 million in the 2021-2022 school year, including upgrades for visitor management standardization, door access changes, intercom public address upgrades and new and expanded use of security cameras, according to Lubelfeld, and it already has alarm boxes throughout schools which students or staff can pull to call police.

Lubelfeld said in a July 26 update the district is researching “weapons detections solutions” to ensure safety.

There has not yet been a decision about whether the district will hire armed or unarmed security, or install metal detectors, and District 112 communications director Nicholas Glenn said any decisions on such measures would include public discussion and consideration.

Lubelfeld also said that the district has been sharing tip lines that allow students or community members to anonymously report potential dangers, such as Text A Tip Lake County — a 24/7 anonymous crisis line for middle school and high school youth — and a district-only tip line.

District 113 launched its own tip line in 2020, which gives users the option of remaining anonymous.

Interior and exterior doors will have “double locks” that can be locked from the inside or outside, Lubelfeld added.

All 10 schools in District 112 will now have at least one full-time social worker, not one shared between multiple campuses, and Lubelfeld said there are just under 30 employees dedicated to mental health throughout the district. He added that Assistant Superintendent Holly Colin is leading a behavioral assessment team for the district.

Dr. Scott Poland, a psychologist and school crisis expert at Nova Southeastern University, talked with teachers in District 113 this week. Poland has studied the trauma children face after mass shootings and met with parents and teachers in South Florida after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

He told teachers that after experiencing trauma such as a mass shooting, kids need chances to write about it, talk about it or make art or music projects as they process and heal.

Adults can play a role in how children perceive, react to and recover from traumatic events.

“It’s really critical that all the adults in school and all the parents, basically model optimism, hope for the future and they model calmness,” Poland said. “It’s really important that we also realize this tragedy has impacted lots of people in different ways.”

Poland said he is “really impressed” by the dedicated efforts schools in Highland Park have made in response to the shooting, including immediately after the chaos.

“A fairly typical response from a school when something happens over the summer is, ‘Well that’s sad, and we’ll do what we can when school starts in the middle of August,’ ” Poland said. “That was not the response of the Highland Park schools. It’s truly extraordinary that they opened up the school and the school became a source of mental health (support) and assistance.”

Superintendent Law said the district hired Jen Ginopolis as director of recovery in order to “lead the effort and coordinate all the resources” in a collective response.

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”She has administrative experience, she’s got a background in counseling and she is uniquely suited to serving in this role,” Law said.

Law said teachers from Highland Park and Deerfield gathered Monday and Tuesday continue to learn about addressing trauma in students.

”We’re having opportunities for teachers to continue getting increased skills in how to deal with this and we’re going to have people who can keep working with teachers throughout the year as they’re working with students,” Law said. ”We know it’s not enough at the beginning of the year to say, ‘This is what you do, this is what you should know,’ and then everyone just goes and does it.”

Stephanie Jacobs, whose twin sons and daughter attend District 112 schools, said she appreciates the stream of communications and security efforts made by administrators.

“I think they’re doing a lot,” Jacobs said, “but what really needs to happen is this country needs to figure this out and our legislators start acting and protecting their citizens.”

Carmen Kini, who has two children headed to Red Oak Elementary next week, said her 8-year-old son led her to safety during the parade shooting. She said she’s more anxious than he is about going back to school, but has been encouraged by the town’s commitment to healing.

”They have done way more than I expected,” she said. “I was not aware of all the things they could do — even horse therapy. They brought (therapy) dogs, also. The whole community has been amazing. Everybody is trying to help each other and it’s nice to see, that behind all this we have a kind city.”