The Pella School Board discussed next steps at their meeting Monday following last week’s attack by a middle school student on three others in the Pella Middle School cafeteria.
Superintendent Greg Ebeling says leadership met with the Pella Police Department and Marion County Emergency Management and reviewed some of the protocols at a meeting Monday. Ebeling says the identity of the alleged attacker will not be released by the school, and only by the county attorney if the individual is tried as an adult. The teen is facing multiple counts of attempted murder and other related assault and weapons charges.
Ebeling says they will review policies and procedures, but funding is limited and many of the suggestions they have received may not be feasible due to those restrictions, as well as staffing challenges before or after school hours as opposed to anything that could occur during the school day.
“It does shake the system pretty dramatically, is the way I’d describe it,” Ebeling said. “You have a lot of questions from people, parents, and community people about the types of things that the school can do to prevent future situations like this, and we are certainly looking at all of those different angles and that’s some that we will continue to do and talk about how that looks at other school systems.”
The discussion came following the annual organizational meeting by the board. Elisa Klahsen was elected as the new board president and Travis Thompson will serve as vice president. Joan Corbin had served as board president since 2011.
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