LT is continuing to implement safety procedures in order to protect its students from growing threats of violence. 

“There’s nothing we care about more than school safety,” LT Superintendent Brian Waterman said. “And we are constantly, continuously looking at strategies and research and working with our law enforcement to make sure that we’re keeping our community safe.” 

Over 20 schools in the Chicago suburbs closed in early September. due to threats of violence. Many of these threats are made on social media and do not actually come to fruition. Even these empty threats are federal crimes, though, and can result in up to five years in prison. Nearby schools such as Hinsdale Middle School have received threats. In some instances, schools have been forced to cancel after-school activities, such as Bartlett High School, or go remote, such as Joliet Public School District 86. Some of the threats seem to be connected as well, with messages being recycled in nearby districts. 

McClure Junior High, a feeder school for LT, recently received a threat of its own. On Sept. 9, McClure administrators were made aware of a threat regarding a weapon, McClure Junior High Principal Laura Broadnax said. A student contacted Broadnax, making her aware of the threat. Immediately following, the school made contact with the Western Springs Police Department, with whom they worked closely for the entire investigation. 

“I think that, in American society broadly right now, there is a lot of anxiety around school safety,” Broadnax said. “That is because of horrific incidents, and we hear about them more and see them more compared to 30 years ago without widespread media access. Incidents like this, when it’s close to home, heighten anxiety levels and make folks a little more nervous about safety in general.”

Ultimately, the threat was not realized and had little credibility, Broadnax said. McClure held a normal day of classes on Sept. 10 and continued to implement its regular safety procedures, such as double-locking doors in the front of the school, not propping doors open, and including safety locks on classroom doors. 

“[Safety is] something I take very seriously,” Broadnax said. “[It’s] something I have to worry about.”

Safety is also a serious concern for LT, Waterman said. On Sept. 24, Waterman sent an email to the LT community outlining safety procedures for LT and steps students and parents can take to ensure LT stays a safe place. 

“This year, the 2024-2025 school year, especially the first six weeks of the school year, has felt different on a national level than previous school years,” Waterman said. “Like everyone, I noticed what’s happening around our country, and it just feels like the beginning of the school year, threats of violence and violent acts have been really prevalent in schools across the country.” 

If LT were to receive a threat, it would set off a chain of events, Waterman said. First, like McClure, a call would be placed to the authorities. Sometimes, the authorities will even receive the threat directly and then contact the school. After that, the school will implement CSTAG protocols, a method of gathering information about a threat in order to address the situation. These safety protocols were implemented during the three swatting incidents that SC received during the 2023-2024 school year. While none of these threats were ever realized, they still had effects on the school community.

“Whether it’s an acted-upon threat or simply a threat, the impact on the social-emotional psyche of students is real,” Waterman said. “That’s something that is just an unfortunate and tragic part of our society right now, that this is what we are living within schools, and so it has a real effect.”

As extensive as LT’s safety protocols are, they are never finalized, Waterman said. For example, LT used to teach students to lock down during a Violent Critical Incident (VCI). Now, ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) protocols are implemented, which gives students and staff more autonomy in decision-making during VCIs. 

“We know that we don’t ever get to a point where we say, you know what, we have these systems in place, we’re good,” Waterman said. “We are constantly reviewing, updating, revising.”

While LT has many reactive measures in place to deal with threats, they also implement proactive measures to create a healthy school environment, Waterman said. One of those is the SAVE Promise Club, founded by the Sandy Hook Promise Organization. SAVE Club has many programs, one of which is Say Something, which teaches students to speak up about observed threats, behaviors, actions, and harassment. 

“Our best defense mechanism is still the relationships we have with students in our community because we rely on students in our community to report,” Waterman said. 

The Sandy Hook Promise also established a hotline for schools to reach out to if they receive a threat, Broadnax said. McClure was able to reach out to that hotline and receive guidance on defusing their threat. 

“[Kids should] report things that are of worry to them, [and] reach out to the trusted adults in their lives,” Broadnax said.

LT’s branch of the SAVE Promise Club is a large part of the school community, club sponsor and teacher Patricia Callahan said. The club has about 100 students on its mailing list and hosts monthly meetings, as well as large-scale events such as a lemonade giveaway and a meet-and-eat during lunch periods at both campuses. The club works to promote the Say Something and Start With Hello programs in the school community. 

“The greatest tool we have to protect ourselves from violence in our schools and communities is our ability to connect with one another,” Callahan said.

The club was started in 2018 by Callahan and a group of five students in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida in February of. 2018, Callahan said. It was fast-tracked by the administration so the club could start that year, and LT could begin to connect with students and implement the programs. 

“I can think of no better way to help students than to help to promote these programs,” Callahan said.