Days after a deadly shooting at a Bend elementary school, the Philomath School Board agreed Tuesday night to make school safety and security a priority. The chair told colleagues he couldn’t say with confidence that the district has done enough to prepare for an attack.
Board chair Tom Klipfel raised the issue near the end of the meeting, calling it “the wrench in the works” for the board’s planned discussion of district objectives. He said the Oct. 15 shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend hit close to home.
“This whole issue strikes me personally very closely,” Klipfel said. “I’ll just tell you, I am one degree removed from three mass shootings.”
He told the board that the mother of the gunman in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting had been his sister’s college roommate, and that one of his daughter’s best friends from college ran for her life during the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting. His brother, a high school civics teacher, was at his school during a mass shooting.
“He had a 17-year-old girl die in his arms,” Klipfel said.
In Bend, authorities said a 16-year-old forced his way into the school by firing through locked doors, killing three children and a teacher before a person at the scene followed him inside and shot him. The children killed were 5, 8 and 11 years old, and another child and a teacher were hospitalized. A law enforcement official said the shotgun used had been bought by the teen’s mother.
Klipfel said the shooting raised two questions for Philomath — whether staff would recognize warning signs in a troubled student, and whether they know how to respond if an attacker gets into a building.
He pointed to the mass-casualty drills that first responders run and asked whether district staff had ever walked through a similar scenario.
“Have we ever looked at that, where someone comes crashing through the front door? What does the office do?” Klipfel said. “My question is, are we doing enough?”
Klipfel said the district would face hard questions after any violent event.
“The questions we will get asked: Did you do enough?” he said. “And right now, I don’t feel like I could say yes.”
Board member Ryan Cheeke questioned how much any district could do against some threats, noting that elementary classrooms and playgrounds are exposed to the street.
Klipfel agreed that the district wasn’t going to “put guard towers in the corners,” but said it needed to be ready for scenarios that could be prevented or handled better.
“In a scenario that could have been prevented, or could have had a better response or a better reaction, and we didn’t prepare for it — we’re going to have to live with that,” he said.
When Cheeke asked whether training would come from local or state police, Klipfel said the first response would come from local officers. Klipfel added that school safety and security protocols can now be discussed in closed executive session under state law, which keeps details from becoming public.
Superintendent Susan Halliday said the topic could take precedence over others the board had planned to discuss. Klipfel then asked whether the board wanted to elevate safety among its priorities, and members agreed. Klipfel said he would work with Halliday on a plan and bring it back to the board.
Board member Erin Gudge suggested that staff and the community be reminded to act when something looks wrong rather than just watching. She also raised building access, saying school staff routinely buzz her into buildings because they recognize her as a board member.
“Just because you know the person coming in doesn’t mean that person should be here,” Gudge said. “I just get buzzed in every time I come, and they just let me wander off, and sometimes I don’t even know where I’m going. … I’ve never done it at a time when I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I could.”
Klipfel followed with an example from when his children attended elementary school. He described a parent waiting at pickup who yelled at a man trying to pull a child into a van, and the man drove off.
Board member Sandi Hering said the discussion should also cover how quickly and effectively the district communicates with parents and students during a safety incident.
“I know there’s a perception that sometimes things are delayed,” Hering said.
Klipfel said that sometimes delays are necessary, and that the district should define “what are those parameters.”
Before the meeting closed, Gudge offered the board’s support to the Bend-La Pine Schools community.
“While we can feel alone in times of trauma and pain, I think it’s helpful for people to know that they’re not actually alone,” she said.
Halliday said local people had volunteered this week to help staff safe spaces and care rooms for Bend students.
