OXFORD, Mich. – An investigative report detailing what happened during and before the Oxford High School shooting is expected to be released by Oct. 30, the school district said, nearly two years after the massacre.
Parents and families in the Oxford Community Schools District have been frustrated by the lack of information from the school board in the wake of the 2021 mass shooting, in which four students were murdered and seven people were injured. Parents have criticized the district for offering few details, and for taking a while to coordinate a report.
The school board had declined several offers made by the Michigan attorney general to conduct a third-party investigation after the mass shooting occurred. Eventually, the board was pressured to hire an outside firm to conduct an investigation -- but it has taken almost two years for the report to come out.
The school board said the report will be made available to the board and to the public at the same time: on or before Oct. 30. However, the community and school board members still have lingering questions and doubts about the process.
School board members showed Tuesday, Aug. 29, that they have real questions about how the contract for the investigative report was reached. On the other end, parents wonder if they will see everything that this report uncovered.
A letter was provided to the board of education in an effort to provide clarity on the upcoming release of the third-party investigation into the Oxford shooting -- but board members wanted more than what they saw on that paper. The board asked for more clarity on things like the scope of the investigation, and how the contract was pulled together to begin with.
Some school board members described the investigation process as messy, and say they’d like an outside legal opinion on how it’s been structured. Former school board president Tom Donnelly had resigned during the process, and said during a Tuesday night meeting that he fought to make sure the contract was done right, and knows why the contract “is the way it is.”
On the other side, parents wonder if the incoming report will even offer valuable information following such a complicated process.
“You’ve had parents here for a year and a half screaming about the integrity of this report,” parent Andrea Jones said Tuesday at the board meeting. “What part of every single one of you, new or old board member, didn’t say, ‘I want to see that contract’?”
Details about the shooter and the shooting have slowly been revealed over the last year and a half in courtrooms and court documents. But, with allegations against school staff and administrators accused of not doing enough to help prevent the shooting, the community wants answers from the district itself.
See Mara MacDonald’s full report in the video below.