La Grande School District Offer Insight on their Lockout Plan
By Garrett Christensen on Wednesday, May 17th, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
LA GRANDE – On May 5, 2023, Law enforcement responded to the La Grande High School which, along with the middle school, had entered an emergency lockout state after four individuals were seen on the High School track wearing masks and appeared to be holding firearms. Ultimately, the four individuals were confirmed to be students and, as stated in the LGSD’s official press release at the time, “did not have real weapons, criminal intent, and did not pose a credible threat to students, staff, or the community.”
Though the threat was quickly resolved, and an official statement provided to the community within a few hours, the time preceding this resolution was an understandable flurry of questions and concerns by community members and parents. In an effort to maintain transparency, both regarding this specific lockout and any future incidents, LGSD Superintendent George Mendoza provided some insight as to how the district prioritizes the distribution of information during lockout situations:
“One good reminder is whenever we have a lockout, that means that we are locking our students or locking anybody from going outside or coming in at that time. The reality is, we’re dealing with that threat and student safety and staff safety are a priority during that time. The reality is, we’re working hand in hand with police or SRO’s right then and there. We’re also taking account of our students, sweeping the hallways for students, taking role for our students, and then updating our school office during that time to make sure that we have all of our students accounted for.”
Mendoza went on to explain that, aside from student and staff safety being prioritized, putting out incomplete or inaccurate information could create further issues as community members may try to contact the school en-masse or even try to gain entry to the school grounds in the midst of a lockout or immediately following one. Instead, any kind of comment or release is held off until the situation has been both resolved and analyzed, as was the case on May 5. Though a lockout situation is stressful for all involved, the community is asked to be patient and wait for proper information to be compiled by both the school district and law enforcement. As further explained by Mendoza:“It just doesn’t happen in a twenty or a thirty-minute scenario. Sometimes, it takes a little bit longer than that. You have to fact find, you have to know all the details, you have to make sure staff are safe, students are safe, you have to brief with people and then you have to make that information clear. There is a process to it, and we do have national emergency management standards that we use. They’re all basically NEM standards that you follow whenever you go through any kind of emergency event. We work down those plans, communicate as best we can and take action in support of student safety as the priority.”
