Recent attacks prompt CdA district to form task force

Coeur d’Alene School District’s superintendent is pulling together a task force focused on student behavior. The decision comes in the wake of two knife attacks at district middle schools. The first attack happened on March 12 at Woodland Middle School when an eighth-grade boy was stabbed multiple times by another eighth-grade boy armed with a pocketknife. An incident this week, in which a student held a knife to the neck of another student at Lake Middle School, is being investigated. “The task force will focus their efforts on weapons, dress code, language, public displays of affection, bullying and the use of electronic devices at the middle and high schools,” said district spokeswoman Laura Rumpler. It will be made up of teachers, principals, students, parents, community members and school resource officers. “We have strong policies in place,” said Superintendent Hazel Bauman, “but my vision for this task force is to find ways to better enforce what we have, establish more concrete standards and get parent and community support of the higher bar we wish to set for student code of conduct.”