Welcome to the Delavan-Darien Grapevine

Welcome to the Delavan-Darien School District’s “Grapevine,” a place where questions are answered, rumors are addressed and facts come to the forefront.

We understand there has been much concern about our schools in the local community lately. Having more than 500 people attend two August 2011 school board meetings can attest to that. The thoughts shared with the school board members, district administration and community members present was valuable, and will certainly go a long way in helping improve our schools.

With this website, we want to address the concerns that are out there and help provide a better understanding of our school district, its staff, its students, its mission and its goals.

While school district staff agree that some changes need to be made for the benefit of all students, some of the “facts” that were brought forward in calling for changes just didn’t hit the mark. We’re hopeful this website will clear up some of the misconceptions, rumors and half-truths, and set the record straight for everyone.

We’re also hopeful this website is a conduit for continued dialogue with our school community. Share with us your concerns, your thoughts, your ideas. They can only help us improve as we strive to be the best educational option for the children of the Delavan-Darien community.

Questions, comments or concerns submitted through this site will be routed to the proper individual for answering them. We’ll try to respond promptly by sharing your question/comment or concern and our response publicly on this site when appropriate.

For starters, we’ve shared some of the concerns and responses brought up at recent parent meetings. You can read them below.

To submit a comment, use the “talk to us” link on the top menu to send us a note. We’ll keep it anonymous, and we’ll answer factually.

Suspicious person incident is unfounded

On Tuesday, May 1, 2012, a man was walking along Highway 11 near the Delavan-Darien High School campus.

A citizen had reported to police that he was carrying a gun. As a result, police officers took precautions with students who were in DDHS physical education classes that were outside on the DDHS campus at the time.

When police investigated the situation, they found the man was singing a song with his iPod about a gun. He was not carrying a weapon.

RUMOR: School Resource Officers were told not to give tickets

Rumor:

“I had heard the school resource officer at DDHS were told not to give students any more tickets.”

Response:

Partially true. School resource officers are asked to first discuss, when applicable, the issuance of citations with building administrators prior to the ticket’s issuance. The reason for this is to make sure the building administration is aware of the situation and help determine if all other options regarding discipline of the student were explored. Despite this added step of oversight, the number of tickets issued in the 2010-11 school year was slightly increased from the number issued in 2009-10.

Offense	2009-2010	2010-2011
Truancy	53	46
Language	12	3
Fighting	2	9
Harassment	3	4*
Threats	2	0
Weapon	1	0
Drugs	1	0
Alcohol	0	1
Disorderly Conduct	1	3
Smoking	1	13
Theft	0	7
Disrespect	0	2
TOTALS:	76	88

(*Note: These four citation were issued for a harassment situation that occurred primarily off of school grounds, yet the investigation revealed the incident may have started at school.)

RUMOR: Bomb threat does not cause evacuation at DDHS

RUMOR:

At the Aug. 3, 2011, community listening session with the school board, a speaker had said there was a bomb threat at DDHS and the school was not evacuated. There was concern that the building was not evacuated?

RESPONSE:

The speaker was correct about the threat and the decision not to evacuate, but there’s more to the story.  Here’s what Delavan Police Department Capt. Jim Hansen, who is also a member of the school board, wrote in response a reporter’s question about the speaker’s concern:

“On April 20, 2011, at approximately 12:30 p.m. the Delavan-Darien High School administration was made aware of graffiti in a girl’s bathroom. The grafitti suggested there would be a bomb the following day and a time was given. (Not for the day of the report) SRO (school resource officer) Officer Reichert contacted me and notified me of the information. We did suspect a student. We (SRO Reichert, DDHS Principal Mark Schmitt and I) questioned the student. Although we did not obtain a confession, I was, and still am confident, the student questioned was responsible for the graffiti (message) written on the bathroom stall door. We, Dr. Schmitt and I, discussed the known information. Both Dr. Schmitt and I did not believe, based on the totality of the gathered information, this was a credible threat. With that said, the following day we did sweep the building, “sweep” meaning we physically checked all hallways, rest rooms, etc. for items that potentially could have raised concern and found nothing.

“With that said, only the School Administration decides if or when to evacuate the school building. The police department does not.”