Kane County Reporter

Superintendent of Batavia School District Dr. Lisa Hichens recently responded to allegations from students and parents that harassment in schools has gone unchanged throughout the past school year.

On the evening of May 24, 2022, before the beginning of the Batavia School board district meeting, parents and students, along with members of the community, planned a small protest outside the building before going in to share their voices in the meeting, according to Kane County Chronicle. Organizers said that the protest was not in response to any specific incident, but rather the lack of action and change from the school board despite months of alleged harassment in the schools.

"It does appear we have members of the community rallying around a cause, looking for action, and students feeling unsafe is a very worthy call to action," Dr. Hichens said at the May 24 Board of Education meeting. "Students who feel like they do not feel welcome or included are also a very worthy call to action."

"The public commenters meeting tonight are talking about students experiencing racist and homophobic comments. There are students who experience these things in our schools. There are also on social media right now some things that are rumors, such as the one where a hundred students barricaded bathroom doors to stop a student from entering a bathroom. A bathroom that they have the rights to enter. In a different group of students, there’s a rumor that a different school had a group of students destroy some LGBT books. These things did not happen the way that they are portrayed online. But some students do experience hate." 

"The narrative that the district is doing nothing when we hear about a student who feels unsafe, harassed, or bullied, is false. We are committed to helping these students to do better, and we are committed to supporting the students who are affected. The details of our interventions are not publicly disciplined to protect student privacy. We do follow up on every incident that has been reported."

Back in February of 2022, school board officials drafted a plan that had an equity statement, plans for formal diversity training, and a committee that was formed to outline a plan of action by the end of the school year, according to Kane County Chronicle. This came almost two months after protests and outrage from students and parents based on alleged racial and homophobic harassment that had been occurring at schools throughout the 21-22 school year.

Complaints were being received even in the fall of 2021, with one teacher claiming that in all her eight years of teaching, she hadn’t witnessed as many racially motivated incidents as she had in that semester alone, as previously reported by Kane County Chronicle. Parents claimed keeping their children safe and respected was becoming an issue, while students of color said they had even stopped reporting incidents because of the lack of help they received from faculty.