"As a result of a number of safety and security measures in place, we did not evacuate. We chose to run school as normal after determining it is in fact safe to run our schools," said NSSD 112 Superintendent Dr. Mike. Lubelfeld.
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Red Oak was evacuated on Thursday and again on Friday due to emailed threats, but searches with police and bomb-sniffing dogs determined there was no credible threat in either case. This comes after a post nearly two weeks ago on an anti-LGBTQ account on the website formerly known as Twitter targeted the school.
"The FBI has recently released that in 2022, threats to public school increased 60%. Therefore, this is becoming a new and unfortunate reality," Lubelfeld said.
Just last month, a false threat caused the evacuation of Crown-Dundee High School in Carpentersville.
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On Tuesday, Highland Park officials joined school administrators, reiterating their commitment to taking threats seriously and denouncing what happened, saying, "It is unacceptable that individuals acting with such disregard for public safety and student learning have disrupted school days, library programming, and other activities throughout the nation."
"Here in District 112, we applaud our teachers and staff. Our community members and we will remain steadfast to continue public education. And in our district, we say we inspire, we innovate and we engage," Lubelfeld said.
The school held a virtual forum over the weekend to have a dialogue with parents who voiced their concerns. Administrators outlined the heightened security measures in place and reassured them their children's safety is their top priority.