Parents of students at Black Forest Hills Elementary School in Aurora are demanding an independent investigation into the school’s response to the attempted kidnapping of a child last week.
A group of parents penned a letter to the Cherry Creek School District superintendent and board members calling for an immediate review of the incident that they wrote, “raised serious concerns about the safety of our children while under school care.”
Aurora police arrested Solomon Galligan, a 33-year-old man and registered sex offender, about three hours after he allegedly went to the school on Friday, and while holding a white blanket, walked up to children who were playing outside during recess. Police said he then lunged toward the kids and tried to grab one of them as the students started to run away. Students began screaming “stranger danger,” and that’s when the suspect apparently left the school, according to an arrest report.
The school notified parents of the incident in a brief message on Friday afternoon and sent two more messages on Friday night and Sunday about law enforcement contact with the suspect.
On Monday, Principal Amanda Replogle sent another email with an explanation of what occurred, an apology for not bringing all students inside right away when the suspect approached students, and what security measures would be taken to make students feel safe.
School district spokesperson Lauren Snell shared those emails with The Denver Post but declined to comment further until the suspect had been formally charged. He is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.
The parents calling for more accountability and transparency, however, say that’s not enough, and that there were failures on multiple levels that put their kids in danger, including ignoring safety protocols. They want the district to make permanent changes.
“This is now being treated as a near miss,” Shannon McCorison told The Denver Post of the district’s response. “And the fact is, a kid was attacked. He was attacked, whether it was successful or not.”
McCorison is the parent of a third grader at the school and is one of the parents behind the effort to put pressure on the school and district to take action.
In the letter sent to officials Tuesday, McCorison and other parents called for temporarily reassigning administrators who were involved in the incident response to duties without direct student contact until an investigation concludes.
And they requested that the school hold an open meeting with parents about how the school handled the situation — including failures — that day, and implement permanent enhanced security measures at the school.
It took nearly an hour before police were notified of the incident, according to a timeline compiled by Nicole Jass, one of the parents who spoke to people involved. The school was not placed on a “secure perimeter,” which would get students and staff inside the school and prevent anyone from exiting or anyone else from entering the school during a threat. Students were allowed to continue going outside to play, even though administrators didn’t know where the suspect had gone, Jass said.
It took at least another 20 minutes before parents were notified that anything had happened at the school, and students were allowed to leave school grounds alone, the timeline stated.
Jass, the mother of a third grader and fifth grader at the school, became angrier the more she learned about the incident and what school administrators failed to do, she said. Her daughter was outside and saw the boys running from the man, but the students remained outside for a while before staff members brought them inside, Jass said. Later that same day, her younger son was allowed to go outside to play.
On Monday, Jass was among about 60 parents who demanded to speak to the principal.
“I trusted the school and when your trust is rattled, that’s probably what shook me the hardest,” she said.
Replogle admitted that this wasn’t the first time unauthorized people have made it onto the school grounds in front of students, McCorison said. The parents want to hear directly from district leaders about the conclusions of any investigations and how these situations will be prevented in the future. They haven’t received a response to their letter or an online petition also demanding a comprehensive review.
“The kids all did the right thing and were told to calm down and go on with business as normal,” McCorison said. “The kids were made to feel like their alarm was incorrect. And the adults didn’t act the way they’ve been trained to act. That is intolerable to me.”
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