BLOOMINGTON — A school lockdown last week in response to a report of a student possibly having a gun has prompted Bloomington District 87 officials to evaluate what happened and how to improve.
"We are focused on meeting with staff, discussing how that went and using this as an opportunity to be able to get better," District Superintendent David Mouser told the school board Wednesday.
Bloomington High School and the neighboring junior high were locked down for about 40 minutes on April 8 as a precaution.
Bloomington Police Department spokesman Officer Bryce Janssen said previously that officers were dispatched at 9:46 a.m. to the high school for a report of a boy possibly having a gun while en route to BHS.
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He said officers made contact with the minor outside of the school building on school grounds and took him into custody. No weapon was found.
Some procedural issues were highlighted because of the lockdown, Mouser said, and the district is diligently working on resolving those.
"Our director of safety and security is going to come to the next board meeting to talk a little bit about our safety and security protocols districtwide," Mouser said, "and what trainings we're going to be attending this summer ... improving our practices across the board."
In another matter, the board heard that 65.2% of the district's students, or nearly 5,000, qualify for free or reduced lunches. Nicole Rummel, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, noted in her presentation that the numbers have increased, and eight of the nine schools have more than half of their students in the program.
West Bloomington's Sheridan Elementary School has the largest, proportionally, at 89%, she said.
The board had been expected to vote on an architectural firm and construction manager for remodeling the newly purchased Oakland Avenue Building at 2309 E. Oakland Ave. That action has been delayed until next month, however, because talks haven't been finalized, said Michael Cornale, the district's chief financial and facilities officer.
He did provide an update concerning the student dress codes and delivery policies, though.
"Based on some suggestions from the elementary school, we aligned our dress codes districtwide for all schools," Cornale said.
In the coming school year, students also will not be allowed to receive deliveries to the high school, he said.
Cornale told the board there had been an excess of deliveries like "flowers, balloons, those types of items, the candygrams that would come to the BHS office, and they'd be responsible for holding them all day, ... so (we) really tried to nix that."
Rummel said overall attendance had increased in the district from the previous year, but "I did think it's important to point out that we are down at Bloomington Junior High over the course of the year."
She showed a 5.1% decrease in attendance so far in 2023-24 from the previous year.
"I've talked with Principal (Messina) Lambert," Rummel said. "We have some new staff there, both in the office and in the classroom. And so we're just going to look at our procedures for taking attendance, and we want to make sure that we're accurately documenting who is and isn't at school every day."
Disciplinary incidents remained steady, with 16,581 incidents through March this year compared to 16,977 for the same period last year, she said.
Rummel also shared a report by Heartland Community College showing the number of students taking dual-credit courses in the district grew from 29 in 2021 to 145 in 2023.
"Those are those general, core classes that students are able to take with them to any four-year public institution for credit," she said.
The number of BHS graduates attending Heartland increased as well, from 72 to 85, Rummel said.
The board also welcomed two new staff members to the district.
Jessica Stollard was introduced as the new associate director of student services. Michael Mosely, who was previously the varsity boys basketball coach, was welcomed back to that job.