Public forum in May

By Don Rush

The first of two reports from an independent third party surrounding the Nov. 30, 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School should be released, ‘in the coming weeks.’

At its April 11 Oxford School Board meeting, Bradley Dizik, Executive Vice President at the firm Guidepost Solutions spoke to the board. “I am pleased to report that our investigation is closer to completion and that we have transitioned, for the most part, to report writing. We intend to issue two reports. We still have two or three interviews scheduled for this month. To date most of the victims and victims’ families have met with us. We have final interview requests out to the counsel for the victims and their families to afford them all an opportunity to meet with us before the investigation concludes and the reports are made public.”

He added the first report will be “released in the coming weeks.”

On a number of occasions during his prepared speech, Dizik thanked Schools Superintendent Dr. Vickie Markavitch and School Board President Dan D’Alessandro for their help. “Beginning in the winter, with the election of Dan D’Alessandro as President and the appointment Dr. Vickie Markavitch as Superintendent we experienced more voluntary cooperation from school employees including those represented by counsel.”

The first report will document the district’s current security and threat assessment program and practices, he said, versus documenting on “security and threat assessment programs and practices that were interim and no longer applicable.” It will be released to the school board and to the community “at the same time.”

He also said Guidepost would host a public forum to discuss the report.

“We have reviewed all these practices. This report will document a lot of good practices, others that may be excessive and unneeded going forward, and places where improvement can be made. After this first report is released and at the request of this board for community listening sessions, we will host a community forum to answer questions about our first report for the Oxford community and the public. The date and format for this community forum is to be determined but most likely in May.”

School board member Erin Reis asked Dizik to clarify if there will be more than one forum. “Because there are differences in population, some folks can come in the day, some can come at night, some only on weekends. Will there be multiple community forums? I think you will have to do at least two. One would be insufficient,” she said.

Dizik said his firm “would be happy to do that.”

D’Alessandrdo thanked Dizik for the report, “This board, this community has a lot of questions. It’s important that we get quality and not just expedience. I know this is not going to sit well with a lot of folks, but we want quality. We want as many answers as we can possibly get. We owe it to this community.”

Last November, Guidepost stated it should have an initial report ready for the public and school board by January. In January the firm posted on its website, “Because of these personnel changes and the opportunity to report to the Oxford community on the current security and threat assessment practices with additional information that derives from the increase in voluntary cooperation, Guidepost’s first report will now be released in Spring 2023. This report and any subsequent report will be released to the public at the same time as it is released to the Oxford Community Schools’ Board of Education and its administration. Our public report(s) will be unedited and without influence from any stakeholder associated with the Oxford Community Schools.”

The second report, Dizik said, will include his firm’s findings from their investigation on what happened leading up to and on the day of the shooting. He said Guidepost Solutions is also in contact with the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office.

“The Prosecutor’s Office has provided Guidepost with significant, detailed information relating to the incident. That information is critical to the review, and some portions of that information are still non-public. As a condition of receiving that information, Guidepost pledged that it would not divulge any nonpublic information until such time as the Prosecutor was comfortable that disclosure would not impact the Miller hearing for the shooter (Ethan Crumbley) or the criminal trial of (Crumbley’s parents Jennifer and James),” he said. He later added the second report could come out before the hearing or criminal trials.

He said the Oakland County Prosecutor, the Oakland County Executive, Oakland County Corporation Counsel, and Oakland County Sheriff provided Guidepost with “complete transparency, producing all evidence and making available to us every person we asked to interview which includes individuals who are now retired and had no requirement to sit down and meet with us.”

Board member Amanda McDonough asked Dizik, “In your original proposal you had stated you would hold community listening sessions . . . including town hall (meetings), focus groups for stakeholders who would like a voice in the process. Can you please tell us how many of these you have had scheduled in the past and when will they be scheduled in the future?”

Dizik responded, “We have met with a number of members of the community. We’ve also met with victims’ families. We have not had a large town hall community forum. The decision was made last June or July by the district and district’s counsel not to do that for various reasons that I do not recall. But, we have provided general access to anyone who wanted to come meet with us and share their perspectives and viewpoints.”