Parents reeling from a deadly shooting at a Bend elementary school packed an emotional community meeting Thursday night and asked district leaders for privacy film for school windows, bulletproof glass and police officers in every middle and high school. But to almost every question, parents got the same frustrating answer: There’s no money.

The meeting came a week before classes are set to resume at Silver Rail Elementary School after the Oct. 15 shooting. A 16-year-old shooter who used to attend Silver Rail climbed a fence and shot through locked doors before entering a special education classroom and killing three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — and a 25-year-old teacher with a shotgun. A father who had seen the teen enter the school followed him inside and shot him dead before police arrived.

The meeting, which was livestreamed and lasted more than two hours, was filled with palpable tension as angry and anxious parents pushed Bend-La Pine Schools leaders on how they could make the schools safer.

“The budget doesn’t mean anything to me, and it doesn’t mean anything to those who lost their children or their daughter,” a parent of an Elk Meadow Elementary student said.

“I understand we have budget constraints, but when do we look at this as this is life and death?”

Parents also spoke up about student services like mental health resources and support for students who drop out of school. The shooter was not currently enrolled in the district.

Representatives from the National Mass Violence Center were also on hand to address the community’s trauma. The group was also present at a meeting for Silver Rail parents on Wednesday that was closed to the wider public.

Angie Moreland is the organization’s associate director. She compared the ripple effects from a mass violence event to what happens when you throw a rock into a lake.

“You’ve got the center … where the biggest impact is at Silver Rail Elementary,” she said. “But then the rock doesn’t just sink to the bottom of the lake; it causes these ripples that go out.”

They go to schools in the community, out to the whole city, and even farther, Moreland said.

“The fact that people are here throughout the community that may not have been in the building that day — it does not mean that you were not impacted,” she said.

District safety director Scott Bojanowski outlined the safety assets the school district does have: eight school resource officers, 13 campus monitors, locks, PA systems and secure lobbies at school entrances. Two law enforcement officers who work with the school district were on Thursday’s panel.

“Everything we’ve talked about tonight takes more money,” Bojanowski said.

An emergency communication system, for example, would cost millions of dollars the district doesn’t have, Bojanowski said. Responding to that, a couple of audience members asked questions about notifications and school lockdown decisions made on the day of the shooting.

Bojanowski and Bend Superintendent Steve Cook said they are having an outside investigator perform a report to evaluate the district’s actions and response to the incident.

Another parent asked about a 2025 bill known as Alyssa’s Law that directed school districts to “consider the installation of a panic alarm system,” sponsored by Bend legislator Emerson Levy. A previous 2023 bill included $2.5 million to help school districts pay for the alarm system.

Cook said the district doesn’t have an alarm system because state funding only covered one year of implementation and the district had to make other choices with its limited funds.

“Alyssa’s Law is great, but again, so many of the laws that are passed aren’t actually funded so it’s almost impossible for us to implement them with our limited budgets,” said board chair Amy Tatom.

Like districts across the state, Bend-La Pine officials say the money it receives from the state is not enough. In addition to increasing operating costs, Cook and Tatom point out that a third of the district’s budget goes to teacher retirement costs.

Some parents asked how they could help the district, whether through fundraising or through some kind of parent volunteer system to patrol schools.

Other parents wanted to know about systems that could have protected their children long before the shooting. Questions focused on what the district is doing to track unenrolled students and plans to increase access to counseling services. One parent said that in her daughter’s elementary school, a counselor is only available part-time.

Cook and Tatom, the school board chair, also brought up the possibility of asking voters to pay for security upgrades or more counselors through a bond or a levy.

Cook said the district is applying for several federal grants to fund projects related to safety, but that the process will take months if the district is approved.

Some in attendance felt like they were leaving the meeting without actionable advice.

“We don’t have any conclusion, there’s no closure,” one person said to applause. “What advice would you give everyone in the audience tonight? What can we do now?”

Moreland, from the National Mass Violence Center, mentioned continuing to work together as a community, building lists of resources and sharing them widely.

Tatom offered a couple of other free suggestions.

“There’s a lot we can do that doesn’t cost money,” she said, citing Silver Rail’s motto of “kindness.”

“A kid — he left our schools, for whatever reason. And he came back and committed an atrocious act,” she said. “We need to be kind to each other, we need to be kind to our kids, we need to teach our kids kindness.”

Tatom then added another tip for families: safe storage for guns. Bend-La Pine is one of several locations around the region that offers free gun locks.

“Maybe that’s not the whole solution,” Tatom said, “but that’s what we can do now while we’re talking about bigger solutions that take time and money that we, frankly, don’t have.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/11/06/bend-la-pine-schools-safety-improvements/