MOUNT HOREB, Wis. (WKOW) -- District leaders say safety measures that were already set in place were a factor in preventing further tragedy during an active shooter situation on Wednesday.
The Superintendent of Mount Horeb Area School District Dr. Steve Salerno was joined by Trish Kilpin, director of the Office of School Safety with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Thursday afternoon for a press conference. The School District held a community healing space in the High School commons on Thursday. Salerno said the goal was to announce the plan about returning to school by 6 p.m.
"It's not lost on any of us that we've lost a beautiful soul in our district," Salerno said. "There's a family that's hurting right now, and nobody wants this for their child. We spent some time grieving, mourning, but also painting the next steps for us as a school district and how we can be of best service as possible to those we have the pleasure to serve. We also felt like it was an opportune time for families to work directly with their children at home."
"We know our parents and caregivers are the primary people who support their beautiful children, and we feel as though it's important for them to take time to heal, and begin that process with the vision for us to be able to allow our staff to do likewise," Salerno said.
Classes were dismissed for Thursday, allowing students time and space to heal from the events on Wednesday. Conversations between staff and faculty are in the works to determine what the best steps are moving forward for everyone in the Mount Horeb Area School District community.Â
"Our Student Services team, those are our counselors, psychologists, and other really key individuals are meeting collectively to plan out what specifically does support look like at each grade level, so that when we do return to school, we are best prepared to help out our young people." Salerno said.Â
"We would not be where we are as early as we are today without the outstanding efforts of The Office of School Safety," Salerno said. "We remain indebted to our community, our businesses, our parents, even people without children in our schools for the outpouring of support and love they've demonstrated to our children and to our staff. We can't put into words, quite frankly, the amount of gratitude, profound, deep gratitude we have for the love that's been shown to our kids in this school district."
Kilpin also added that experiences like this are expected to cause trauma among anyone, especially students. She said that the state of Wisconsin has implemented practices that are meant to provide support for communities impacted by events such as this one.Â
"The work of schools is complex when it comes to school safety," Kilpin said. "We must simultaneously prioritize prevention, protection, having more secure entrances, mitigation, so when something happens that we're lessening the impact of that and we're reducing the trauma symptoms for our youth in our community."
"Today and yesterday, we drew upon resources from my office, the Office of School Safety, and the Critical Incident Response project, to bring support and assistance to the school district to provide resources for parents so they can help-- so they can know how to talk to their child about events like this that are quite scary, or how they can support their child's recovery," Kilpin said.Â
"Grief has no timeline," Salerno said. "We're prepared to do whatever it takes, we see it as the right thing. That's a moral imperative in my mind, for us to do whatever we can to help reset our community and whatever our community needs, we'll let that dictate the length of time that we invest in this process."Â
Moving forward, Salerno said that responding officers have offered their support and presence in school buildings.Â
"The Office of School Safety has developed 12 Critical Incident Response Teams across the state so that there is help in every region after trauma exposure, in order to mitigate the impact of that trauma and help kids get back to learning more quickly, using evidence-based practices to do so," Kilpin said.
This includes a project where the goal is to encourage open communication about concerns about threats, behavioral threats assessments, and general school safety.Â
"Speak Up, Speak Out Wisconsin is a proven tool where people can report concerns about youth, not just telling on youth, but instead if you are showing signs of struggle, if they're showing warning behaviors, if they're showing that they're planning some act of violence, or have thoughts of harming yourself, and all kinds of things," Kilpin said. "We are responsive in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We staff Speak Up, Speak Up Wisconsin, and we encourage the community and and kids, if they have concerns, this is a safe place to report those. It's a confidential way to get that information."
Anonymous reports can be submitted on their website. Reports can also be submitted through the SPEAK UP, SPEAK OUT app, by calling 1-800-MY-SUSO-1, or by texting SUSO to 738477 to receive a link to the anonymous tip form.
