OXFORD, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Two former Oxford school board members spoke at a press conference on Monday afternoon, saying the district failed to implement its threat assessment policy ahead of the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting which killed four and injured seven.
Tom Donnelly, the former Oxford school board president, and Korey Bailey, the board’s former treasurer, say the district’s policy had been in the district’s system for years.
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“It is a protocol that describes the proper procedures to assess a threat preemptively, not one that’s already happened,” Donnelly told reporters.
Among other things, this alleged protocol outlines how to train educators and counselors to look for early warning signs, like expressions of violence in writings and drawings, threats of violence, testing poorly on an emotional assessment and more. It creates a marker system for students who are most at risk.
In addition, Donnelly said the confessed shooter should have taken an emotional assessment in 2020 and 2021 called SAEBRS.
“The district certainly didn’t use it as designed in the months leading up to the shooting,” he said. “There’s no evidence that we’ve ever used it.”
Donnelly and Bailey are speaking out in order to help other districts learn a lesson from what happened at Oxford and commit to training on how to prevent targeted school violence. Both said they resigned because they felt silenced on the board and allege “non-district voices” kept them in the dark.
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“I learned in the month of May something we should have been told by our non-district voices in February concerning the Oakland County Prosecutor’s position on us going ahead with a third party review,” Donnelly said.
16-year-old Ethan Crumbley has pleaded guilty to the shootings and will begin sentencing hearings in February. His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, face separate charges relating to buying the gun for their son and not getting him mental health help.
