School may get plaque for Dylan
Shasta Groene thinks it’s a great idea to have a plaque memorializing her slain brother on the playground at Fernan Elementary School, her father said Monday.
Steve Groene persuaded Coeur d’Alene school board members to reverse their stance on where the plaque should go. Last month, board members voiced concerns that having it at the school Dylan Groene attended would be a painful reminder for Shasta, who still goes there, and would prompt other children to ask what happened to him.
But Steve Groene had a different take on it.
“I know Shasta would have no problem with it,” he said, explaining that they had talked it over. “She knows how much Dylan loves that school.”
As far as the reaction it would prompt in other children, Groene said the idea is not much different from naming a school after Abraham Lincoln, also a victim of homicide. Dylan Groene was killed last year after he and his sister were kidnapped from their home near Wolf Lodge Bay.
“I think the kids are going to be more interested playing on the wall than looking at the plaque,” Groene added.
He was referring to a “wall ball” structure, a playground game wall that Bill Bailey, a North Carolina man, wants to raise money for and place at Fernan in Dylan’s memory. Bailey told Groene he was especially touched by the fate of the family because he has a son the same age as Dylan and that the two look alike. Dylan was 9 when he died, allegedly killed by sex offender Joseph Duncan.
Steve Groene on Monday said he cares about the emotional well-being of Fernan students and suggested that perhaps parents be surveyed on their thoughts of having the plaque on the playground, instead of inside the school or at Coeur d’Alene’s Human Rights Center – two other options that have been brought up.
Board Chairwoman Wanda Quinn said she supports having the plaque attached to the wall, so long as the parent group at Fernan doesn’t have strong concerns.
Bailey estimated the wall would cost between $12,000 and $15,000. His draft donation letter asks people to send contributions directly to the elementary school.
Groene said he thinks something should also be done to remember Slade, Dylan’s older brother who was killed along with his mother, Brenda Groene, and Brenda’s boyfriend, Mark McKenzie. Duncan is scheduled to stand trial for those three homicides this fall.
After the meeting, Groene said Slade – being a 13-year-old – was not as into school as Dylan and would have preferred to stay home and play video games. But he said he still would like Slade to be remembered at Lakes Middle School through a plaque or planting of trees. He added, smiling, that he’d like the school to be renamed for his son, “but I’m not going to ask.
“Anything would be appreciated by my family,” he said.
In other board business Monday night:
“The school board gave a preliminary nod to a proposed policy that would give parents and guardians the opportunity to say they don’t want their student to participate in extracurricular organizations.
Staff advisers would be responsible for reviewing whether any parents have made such requests. The proposed policy notes, however, that the school district cannot prevent students from attending meetings and that parents are ultimately responsible for their children’s activities.
The proposal now goes to district schools for a 30-day comment period before it comes back to the board for a vote.
This draft policy takes a different approach than one submitted to the school board by the Mica Flats Grange, a fraternal agricultural organization. In that proposal, parental permission would have been required before a student could join a club.
Community discussions about parental involvement in students’ extracurricular activities arose after Lake City High School students formed a Gay-Straight Alliance club in the fall.
“The public is invited to comment on a proposed attendance zone adjustment that would affect about 100 elementary students in the northern end of the school district. Students living in the Oak Crest and Grouse Meadows areas would be shifted from Skyway to Ramsey elementary because the latter has more space after a recent remodel. The public meeting will be May 10 at 7 p.m. at Skyway Elementary.
The school district is also considering adjusting the middle school boundaries to relieve crowding at Woodland and Canfield and to shift some students to Lakes. The district plans to hold a public meeting on that proposal, too, before the end of the school year.
“The district is teaming up with Kootenai County to survey 600 residents by phone later this month. The district will ask about its failed buildings levy from March, and the county will ask about its failed jail bond.
The two entities will split the cost of hiring a Spokane firm to conduct the survey over a four-day period.
Superintendent Harry Amend said he doesn’t know what the total cost will be but that funds will come from donations.