The Shorewood School District hosted a panel on school and student safety in the SHS auditorium on November 18 to discuss recent events that have happened at the school. 

Superintendent Bryan Davis, as well as Tracy Oerter, Children’s Hospital Teen Mental Health director; Brooke Talbot, president of RedGen; David Bowen, State Representative and Peter Nimmer, Police Chief, all spoke as part of the panel for the first 45 minutes. 

“I think that we really wanted to have an opportunity to bring the community together. An opportunity for us to be together is part of the healing,” said Paru Shah, school board president.

Parents, school staff, community members, and a few students listened to the panel presentations. The panelists emphasized the importance of mental health and the idea that ‘if you see something, say something.’

“I thought [the event] was necessary so that people could fully understand all the things that are being done throughout the community and our schools to address this kind of issue,” said Jennifer Anderson, Shorewood parent.

After each panel participant spoke, participants were encouraged to write questions down on pieces of paper that were provided, or send a message to a displayed phone number. The questions were received by the mediator, Sam Coleman, Equity Director, who then paraphrased and posed the questions to the speakers.

“I think it first started off pretty rocky, but I feel like towards the end, I got the answers and closure that I needed to feel completely comfortable at school,” said Ardnas Young-Oglesby, junior.

This question and answer method was different from past methods at community discussions.

“I think they had to be done that way, filtered through one person because I was here for the conversation that went down last year for To Kill A Mockingbird,” Anderson said. “That had a very different, kind of uncontrolled vibe.”

The goal was to have a more effective way to get as many questions asked and answered as possible.

“I think it helps more questions being answered honestly because a lot of people asked similar things,” Shah said.

Shah also was impressed with the questions that were asked and the compassion of the parents. 

“There was never this, like, singling out particular students or suggesting that we don’t want people in our community,” Shah said. “I think I appreciate that we’re a district that talks about compassion and lives that way.”

As a result of the discussion, Young-Oglesby feels like her well being is being recognized by the administration.

“I learned… that my feelings are being acknowledged and that my health is being acknowledged more than I thought before. So I’m pretty happy about that,” Young-Oglesby said.