By Dan Moran
NewsSun
FEBRUARY 23, 2015, 8:30 PM
As local school districts and publicsafety officials move onward with initiatives to prevent violence from
reaching classrooms, state lawmakers have announced plans to work with mental health professionals to
help children with mental illness in the hopes of preventing school shootings.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan last week commissioned a violence prevention task force and the
bipartisan panel’s first meeting was Monday in Chicago.
During a meeting in which educators, police, mental health professionals and first lady Diana Rauner told of
what needs to be done to prevent the kind of attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, lawmakers
recognized the daunting task of funding such an effort while the state is in such dire financial straits.
“People need to realize that there is a price tag for everything we do in Springfield,” said House Republican Leader
Jim Durkin after he left the task force’s meeting. “At the end of the day, we only have X amount of money to
spend.”
The task force follows a report that showed educators and mental health professionals missed opportunities to
treat 20yearold Adam Lanza before he shot and killed 26 children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. Lanza also shot and killed himself.
The Illinois task force will study the report from Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate to determine what steps
local officials might take to prevent a similar tragedy.
Given such tragedies as the deadly shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, Virginia Tech University
and Northern Illinois University, both Durkin and Rep. Greg Harris, the Chicago Democrat chairing the
committee, agreed that lawmakers must do something. The task force was formed after a report last year found
there were many chances to help a gunman before he went on the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook.
“If we are serious about being sure that families and youth and schools have the tools they need to stop this from
happening we are going to have to put our money where our mouth is,” said Harris after the meeting.
At Waukegan Public School District 60, violence prevention approaches range from an antibullying curriculum
that runs yearround for students at all grade levels to daily precautions like operating metal detectors at the
entrances at both of the district’s high school campuses.
Dr. Christina Conolly, director of crisis intervention and safety for District 60, said school staffers also work with
Waukegan police officers assigned to each campus and the Lake County Health Department’s Emergency
Response Coordinator to both monitor the hallways and assess specific red flags raised by individuals.