OXFORD, Mich. – Parents of students who were shot and killed in the Oxford High School shooting are still frustrated with the lack of information they feel they’re getting from the school district, even after an independent report was published.
Parents of three of the four students murdered on Nov. 30, 2021, were present Thursday at a board of education meeting, where they spoke their minds to the superintendent. The parents and other school and community members are concerned after a third-party investigation found the school and its administrators didn’t do enough to prevent the shooting.
So far, the district has not said much about the findings of the independent investigation. When the report was released at the end of October, officials said the district was reviewing it and would share more information at a later date.
“We need to address the heart of the issue: Our four dead children,” said Jill Soave, the mother of Justin Shilling, who was killed in the shooting.
Soave said she wanted the district to provide a response to the actual shooting timeline that was laid out in the report.
“Once the shooting started, kids could have been saved, kids could have been spared,” Soave said. “They need to address that the cameras weren’t functioning and no one was monitoring them.”
In its 572-page report, Guidepost Solutions said that while the school properly executed its security protocols at the time of the shooting, more could have been done beforehand to minimize or prevent the damage inflicted. The report also claimed the district did not have sufficient guidelines in place for proper threat assessment, which could have potentially identified the shooter as a threat before the actual shooting.
School staff and officials who interacted with the shooter prior to the shooting were also assigned some responsibility in Guidepost’s report. However, investigators said only a fraction of school employees they sought to speak with actually agreed to be interviewed and help with the investigation. Other employees reportedly obtained lawyers and refused to provide information.
---> Families left frustrated after release of Oxford High School shooting report
Buck Myre, the father of another killed student Tate Myre, confronted the superintendent about why so many employees decided to not help the investigation, making it difficult for independent investigators to get first-person interviews.
“[Those are employees] who work in the schools, who serve kids, and four kids are murdered, and they’re not speaking up ... how? I don’t get it,” Myre said.
In response to Buck Myre, Superintendent Vickie Markavitch said, in part: “I’m not pretending to get it, or endorse it, or blame it, or anything.”
Markavitch, who was hired after the shooting, took the brunt of the ridicule on Nov. 9. Some community members in attendance were getting frustrated with the superintendent’s responses, or lack thereof.
“The fact [Markavitch] couldn’t say, ‘yes, these families have fought too hard,’ and ‘yes, the families have waited too long.’ The fact she couldn’t say that just reminds me of how public schools are just this machine and this system,” said Renee Upham, a former Oxford Middle School teacher and parent who left the district over its handling of the shooting.
Parents had many other questions at this week’s board meeting. They wanted to know why certain staff members haven’t been fired for their role in the 2021 shooting, and why the district and board haven’t issued any apologies.
Superintendent Markavitch will take the questions and suggestions from the meeting to the school board as it works to prepare a response to the independent investigation report.
The third-party report came nearly two years after the shooting. The Oxford shooter has since been convicted of 24 felonies, including first-degree murder and terrorism, and is scheduled to be sentenced in early December. He faces life in prison without the chance for parole.
Watch Jacqueline’s full report below.
---> Passionate, frustrated parents, residents hold meetings on high school shooting report in Oxford