Parents, students tell Oak Park D97 board they feel unsafe after alleged incidents; request action

Several parents, students and a Julian School staff member used the board’s public-comment period Tuesday to accuse district employees of failing to protect students and to ask the Oak Park Elementary School District 97 Board of Education to intervene.

Parent Candice Ward told the board she has opened court proceedings and said she has tried for years to get district officials to respond to complaints about an adult alleged to have made a student uncomfortable. “I went to court yesterday and sat with my kids for 6 hours for a hearing just trying to get an order of protection for my babies so they can feel safe in the school,” Ward said during public comment.

Ward said she has filed a federal lawsuit and has repeatedly emailed the district asking for accountability for named staff members; she also said two of her children recently stopped attending school because they did not feel safe. Student Serena Griffin told the board she and her sister have been “constantly attacked” and are now being homeschooled; Griffin said she has kept up her classwork and that she and her sister have been removed from the track team despite continuing to place in meets. “We just wanna go back to school and feel safe and not [have] teachers harassing us,” Griffin said.

Marie Jones, identified herself as a classroom assistant at Julian School, spoke in support of students Serenity and Autumn Hall and said she found it “very disheartening” that the girls were removed from the track team. “They are very mild mannered children and we have no behavioral problems,” Jones said.

The comments named several district employees and referenced a person identified in public comment as John O’Brien. Ward said the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had previously investigated and that a separate DCFS finding cleared a staff member she named. Ward and family members urged the board to take steps to ensure students who feel unsafe can return to school without losing extracurricular opportunities.

Board members did not take formal action during the public-comment period. At least two board members and the superintendent interjected to keep the public-comment time focused on statements rather than back-and-forth debate; one board member told Ward she would have an opportunity to bring her matter up at the appropriate time.

The district’s public-comment rules were read before speakers addressed the board; the board clerk noted the three-minute time limit for each speaker.

The district did not announce a response or a staff action during the meeting. The speakers asked for follow-up and for the district to respond to written communications they said they had sent. The board has no formal action recorded in the meeting minutes tied to these public comments.

The board’s agenda continued after public comment with presentations on technology planning and later routine votes.