It was three years ago when Angel Facio, a 16 year old high school student, snapped while in school stabbing his teacher in the throat and head with a knife several times.  The troubled teen was in a situation that he couldn’t understand and couldn’t escape from; his home was a haven for violent behavior and drug abuse.  There were signs though; a clear list of actions that screamed out that the boy was heading down into a spiral, overcome with anger and depression.

Literally months before the stabbing, Facio was accused of sexually assaulting an 8 year old neighbor and later attempted to abduct a child from a local middle school.  Around this time a school guidance counselor discovered Facio’s journal which described the dire situations he was going through.  The entries spoke of his parents fighting, his mother’s addiction to cocaine and his thoughts of suicide.  Though the counselor tried to convince his mother to read the journal and deal with her troubled son, she refused to take action.

Now looking back, it’s obvious that more care should have been taken around Facio.  If teachers would have known the whole situation around the boy, then there would have never been a time when Facio would have been alone with another student or teacher.  Councilors may have been more involved or Facio could have been moved to a school that provides a more active role in his development, such as a high risk alternative school.

Almost four years after the attack, Illinois school teachers and employees will now have a little heads up when dealing with troubled teens.  Law enforcement officers will be able to verbally share criminal records of students with their educators.  While no written documentation regarding illegal activities may be added to the student’s permanent record, it can give teachers a heads up on which students might have a tendency to react violently.

Governor Pat Quinn, who signed the bill into law at Elgin High School, said “Our children and their teachers deserve to go to school every day feeling safe”.  Carolyn Gilbert, the teacher attacked that day is thankful for the law.  “It may not have happened to me if there would have been that communication, because he’d had those other problems with the law,” she said. “If we’d known about that I would have never, ever been in the room alone with him.”

Facio is now serving out two sentences at the Pinckneyville Correctional Center for attempted murder in 2008 and the sexual assault of a child in 2007.

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