The superintendent of the Ball-Chatham school district, Becca Lamon, said that when the school would try to return to “as much normality” as possible on May 2 when learning in person will start to recover, it recognized that the main objective was going to be on “socio-emotional support and the needs of our students”.
Lamon addressed the region's media on April 30 before a vigil on the football field organized by the Glenwood High School Student Council.
Four Ball ball Students – Aainsley Johnson, 8 years old; Kathryn Corley, 7, and Alma Buhnerkempus, 7, all of Chatham, and Rylee Britton, 18, from Springfield – will have killed on April 28 when the driver of a vehicle struck several people outside the parascolory installation outside Ynot before the vehicle is launching in and through the building.
Although the driver was identified, from Wednesday evening, the police from the Illinois state did not publicly say what could have made the driver penetrate into the building.
Ball-chatham schools that serve some 4,500 students will remain socio-emotional until May 1. All sports and extracurricular activities are also canceled until May 1.
A consulting center at the district college will remain open to students, staff members and the public. Therapy dogs of a certain number of agencies will be available in schools from May 1 to 2.2.
An extended number of regional advisers also help school advisers, she said.
Lamon said there was no plan to extend the school calendar and due to the level of trauma in the community, “we need the students to end the year and be able to finalize this mourning process starting the summer holidays in time.”
The district works on an enveloping plan, said Lamon, which will take place throughout the summer who will support students and staff who were actively involved in the program after school on Monday.
He also composes a list of resources on how others can meet emotional needs throughout the summer.
Lamon said Ynot (young people need other things) is one of the six facilities where students in Ball-Chatham can go before and after ordinary school sessions.
A hundred students had registered at some point during the school year for the schools at the establishment, although Lamon could not put a figure in the number of district students in Ynot on Monday.
“We are grateful for all the support of our staff and our first stakeholders on Monday to arrive quickly on the scene and to help our students meet with their parents so that we can start the healing process,” said Lamon.
Lamon visited the district students who were hospitalized as a result of the accident, calling him “an emotional process”.
Melaney Arnold, spokesperson for the Illinois state police, confirmed that two of the six children injured in the accident had been released from the hospital, although she had no additional information.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@stevenspearie.
