Evanston police say officers were called twice Thursday morning to Haven Middle School for incidents that sent a staff member to Evanston Hospital and a student to the police station.
Cmdr. Ryan Glew says the first call came at 9:20 a.m. in response to “an altercation in a hallway.”
He says a female staff member was knocked over by participants in the altercation, but was not targeted in the incident.
Glew says she was transported to Evanston Hospital by the Evanston Fire Department with what are believed to be minor neck and head injuries.
Then at 11:50 a.m., Glew says, Fire Department paramedics were attending to a male student with a possible medical issue when another male student interfered with their work.
Glew says the interfering student was transported to the police station and charges against him are pending further investigation.
There were no arrests in the first incident, Glew says, and the school will handle it internally.
He says both incidents are still under investigation and that at one point during the morning the school issued a soft lockdown. He added that at this point it does not appear any weapons were involved in either incident.
Why is the fact that no weapons were present shared as some kind of victory? People were badly hurt in a middle school! What are you doing, Dr. Horton?
This is all being blown out of proportion by people opposed to the Social and Racial Equity initiatives of our School Board. Sure the results of this racial equity approach have so far been disastrous, not least for BIPOC, but we must continue this brave work and if we can just persist and keep telling ourselves the achievement gap is due to the systemic racism of Evanston schools, teachers and institutions (despite being one of the most progressive and liberal cities), I am sure we will soon reach a better place where there is no discipline in schools and every-one achieves the same miserably low results.
Not surprising.
Haven lacks discipline.
Expect the problems to grow.
As a Haven parent, my opinions are complicated. On the one hand, our children have had no issues, seen no violence and come home happy and talking about their learning, teachers, friends etc. This is not impacting most kids at the school.
On the other hand, the way the District responds to these concerns continues a troubling pattern on the part of district leadership and the Board of blaming others, making excuses, minimizing concerns and taking an unpleasantly and unproductively defensive posture towards its primary stakeholders – the parents and kids of the district. And the fact is parents and families are leaving the district.
On the THIRD hand, the district is pledging more resources to the school, which are needed, so that’s a positive. Anyway, I just hope the Board doesn’t alienate parents to the point that we no longer have viable public schools in Evanston.