The Illinois Education Association and two lawmakers are calling on school districts to take action to reduce violence in schools.
Representatives Fred Crespo and Tony McCombie are co-sponsoring the legislation, which would require an annual report from schools on their threat assessment teams and protocols required by the 2019 School Threat Assessment law. Currently, schools are only required to report their plans to the Illinois State Board of Education every 4 years.
McCombie said this is a public safety issue, not a political one. She pointed to the recent school shooting in Michigan, where the parents of two survivors are suing the school district because they believe the attack could have been prevented based on warning signs.
"We just don't want that here," she said. "We hear every day more stories, unfortunately, about incidences in our schools and we need to keep our kids safe, we need to keep our teachers safe, and hopefully this will be a pro-active movement that we can do just that."
The IEA said there have been increased reports of violence in schools this year, as students return to in-person learning.
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