BEND, Ore. — Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend reopens to students Thursday, nearly a month after the Oct. 15 shooting that killed three students and a teacher and left another teacher and a student injured. The gunman also died. Classes on Thursday end early, and students will not have a complete school day again until Friday.
Bend-La Pine Schools says about 86 percent of Silver Rail parents named a return to their own school as their first choice, though families also asked for added safety measures. Starting Thursday, a resource officer will be stationed at the school every day until summer. Staffing is also boosted for the first days back, with an extra administrator, five to seven substitute teachers and added mental health support. Families were invited to walk the building Tuesday and Wednesday before classes resume, and teachers and staff spent the week preparing rooms.
The district’s school board met Tuesday evening for the first time since the shooting, in a board room where most of the 50 seats were taken. Scott Bojanowski, the district’s director of safety, and his assistant director, Kayla Martin, took the audience through a timeline that opened with a 911 call at 12:59 p.m. They said nearby schools did not move into secure status until after the threat had ended, a sign that events moved faster than communication among dispatchers, district officials and campuses. The district also acknowledged that its reunification protocol gave no clear direction on telling families that a loved one had died. The district said victims’ relatives had been told by 3:11 p.m., yet all students were not back with their parents until 5:31 p.m.
Superintendent Steve Cook and Amy Tatom, who chairs the board, told families that major safety projects, including privacy fencing and shatter-resistant glazing, would likely depend on a bond or levy, because state funding does not cover security upgrades at every school and 85 percent of the district budget goes to staff. Cook said the classroom where the shooting happened will be boarded up and that Silver Rail families will help decide what becomes of the space. Elsewhere in the district, eight officers already work at two middle schools and each of the high schools.
Parents who spoke during public comment pressed the board on both fronts. Some asked for a districtwide safety improvement plan with visible, measurable steps, and others urged the district to put counseling and relationships ahead of more policing. Bend-La Pine operates 33 schools.