The Bend-La Pine Schools board met Tuesday for the first time since the deadly Oct. 15 shooting at Silver Rail Elementary.

Most of the 50 seats in the board room were full for an at times somber evening meeting, as board members grappled with the district’s immediate response to the shooting, considered new plans for school security and heard pleas from parents and teachers about how to heal the school community and take care of the district’s most vulnerable students.

Attendees and board members listened calmly as district staff and Bend Sgt. James Kinsella shared the state of security in the district’s 33 schools. A few became emotional as the district walked through the events of Oct. 15, starting with a first 911 call at 12:59 p.m. that day.

Bend-La Pine director of safety Scott Bojanowski and Kayla Martin, the district’s assistant director of safety, gave the presentation, detailing what happened at Silver Rail as well as how the incident and response affected neighboring schools.

Seconds after the first 911 call, district officials said the suspect entered the classroom, followed about two minutes later by Silver Rail parent Kaylub Giamanco. Four seconds later, 911 told the school to lockdown. About a minute later, the first officer entered the school, district officials said.

Three schools went into “secure” status, meaning exterior doors were locked but it was “business as usual” for students inside. According to the timeline, R.E. Jewell Elementary, Caldera High, and Pine Ridge Elementary schools did not enter “secure” mode until after Giamanco had killed the shooter. It’s an example of how events unfolded faster than communications between 911, district officials, and the schools.

Bojanowski and Martin continued walking the crowd through the timeline. About 12 minutes after the first 911 call, district officials said, the first Silver Rail classes started to evacuate. Three students and one teacher died in the shooting. Another teacher and a student were injured.

The process to reunite families with their Silver Rail students provided a lesson for district officials. They shared Tuesday that their protocol didn’t give clear direction for how to notify family members of a deceased loved one.

District staff also responded to board member concerns that some families had to wait hours to know their children were okay. The district timeline stated that victims’ families were notified by 3:11 p.m., yet the reunification process wasn’t complete until 5:31 p.m.

Martin said she wanted to be sure she didn’t tell a parent their child was okay if they really weren’t.

“What we were telling staff, is we are trying to control the worst moment of someone’s life in the best and most respectful way we could,” Martin said.

In the safety update, district officials said that beginning Thursday, a school resource officer will be stationed at Silver Rail for the rest of the school year. That’s in addition to eight officers stationed at two middle schools and every high school.

At the meeting, Silver Rail parent Kim Riley expressed frustration with the district and the school board for not holding a board meeting sooner than Tuesday, and asked for a more “substantive response” in how the district will help Silver Rail students who have missed a month of school.

“A plan needs to be implemented to provide resources to the students, to ensure they receive the same level of educational instruction as every student in the district,” Riley said.

One board member asked about the district’s plans to “harden” its schools, adding physical security upgrades that can make schools more difficult to break into.

“I’ve been here 10 years, I have a list of national best practices I’d love to implement in our district, whether that’s more staff, more programs,” Bojanowski said. He said he “feels confident” in the district’s buildings but there are things on his department’s wishlist that require a bond or levy, like higher fences, or locks on more doors.

District superintendent Steve Cook shared that the district is eyeing four different grants that would give the district funding to respond to gaps they found after the Silver Rail shooting. One grant the district plans to apply for, the federal Project SERV grant, aims to help schools “recover from a violent or traumatic event in which the learning environment has been disrupted.”

But a few of the nine public comments received at Tuesday’s meeting asked the district to make sure they’re helping students directly.

“We don’t need more cops, we need social emotional learning, we need relationship,” said Mo Mitchell, parent of a student in the district. “We need to prioritize the comfort of our most vulnerable students, not those of dominant culture.”

“If we prioritize our most vulnerable,” Mitchell said, “all of us will benefit — all of us.”

Todd Prior, another district parent, said he doesn’t want “fear to transform our schools into fortresses.”

“This doesn’t have to be a choice between secure schools and supporting our children,” Prior said. “We can do both.”

Marie Dos Santos, a Jewell Elementary parent, said parents, teachers, and the principal are all talking about school safety. But she wants to see a districtwide “safety improvement plan.”

“What can we approve immediately, what requires additional funding, and what can we as families expect to see as progress?” Dos Santos said. “I’m not asking for promises that every tragedy can be prevented, I’m asking for visible, measurable action … Please don’t let this conversation lose momentum.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/11/10/bend-la-pine-schools-board-holds-somber-first-meeting-after-silver-rail-shooting/