New Year means new laws. See page 3. SPORTS
SCHOOLS
Central second at Romeoville
Hopefuls file for School Board PAGE 13
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T HE ENTERPRISE Your Complete Source For Plainfield News Since 1887
Volume 125 No. 22
www.enterprisepublications.com
Serving Will and Kendall counties
28 pages
Protecting our youth School District, Police say schools are safe, but push up annual review of procedures and protocols By Nick Reiher Managing Editor
Plainfield Police Chief John Konopek admits the thought crossed his mind after more than 20 children and staff were killed several weeks ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. He thought about resurrecting an idea that he had retracted earlier this school year after an outcry from the community: storing assault rifles in the high schools under lock and key in case of hostage situations or other such emergencies. “But it wouldn’t have helped anyway in a case like Sandy Hook,” he said. The officer with the key would have to have been close to the weapons locker. You can’t count on that happening, he said. Konopek said they and police departments in the other communities that feed into District 202 work closely with school
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officials to make sure students are safe without turning schools into prisons. Following the Dec. 14 shooting in Connecticut, Konopek said they all met with the school district to talk about ways to improve security procedures in and around the schools. “We generally do that every year in June,” said D202 spokesman Tom Hernandez. “But we did it now because of the Sandy Hook tragedy.” Konopek declined to talk about some of the security measures discussed because he said that in itself could jeopardize security. But in general, he said, they talked about the possibility of increased barriers to make it more difficult for people who don’t belong in the schools to get inside. Those included new procedures such as ID checks, as well as new equipment that could help. The latter would entail See SAFETY, page 4
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