Welcome

Good afternoon,

Today at Rockford High School, in cooperation with our security and local safety partners, we brought in their trained dogs to do a protective sweep of our high school parking lot. This is a routine and preventive practice that helps keep our students and staff safe while at school.

Unfortunately, a member of our Rockford High School NITRO team, which is our high school skeet shooting team, had a long gun in the trunk of the car. The dogs reacted to the car and, upon investigation and with consent of the student, a search discovered a long gun in the trunk.

Administrators and our school resource officer investigated, including interviews with the student and the parents. The parents of the student were called, and the gun was removed from our campus. We are also taking the appropriate disciplinary action.

At no time was school safety compromised. It is clear from the investigation that there was no ill intent. It was an unfortunate mistake.

We offer a wide variety of activities for our students to be involved in at Rockford High School – including skeet shooting. Each sport has rules that students must follow as part of the team. The skeet shooting team knows they must keep long guns used in competition off of school property.

This unfortunate circumstance was handled without incident at the high school. I wanted to make sure you heard about this incident from me. Thus, this email.

Steve

Dr. Steve Matthews
Superintendent
Rockford Public Schools