Riverhead school board members came under fire last night from two angry residents complaining that the district did not immediately alert parents about a social media post discovered on a student’s phone January 11.
The post contained an “inappropriate image,” district superintendent Nancy Carney said, but did not make any threat toward the school, students or staff. School administrators saw no reason to implement the district’s emergency action plan and instead handled the incident directly with the student’s parent, she said. An assistant superintendent reported the post to Riverhead Police “for documentation,” according to a police department press report.
Although the police press report — a daily summary of incident reports released to the media — described the post as “referring to school shooting plans” school officials and police maintained from the outset that there were no “shooting plans” mentioned and no threat was made against the school.
“There was no threat made toward the school,” Riverhead Police Captain Richard Smith confirmed in an interview today. It was “an inappropriate posting,” he said. “There were no shooting plans mentioned, nothing like that.” The student’s parent was informed, he said.
But the use of the phrase “school shooting plans” in the police press report caused an uproar among angry parents two days later, when the Riverhead News-Review published an article online titled, “District investigating school shooting threat at Riverhead High School.”
That anger was apparent during last night’s board meeting, when exchanges between residents and board members grew heated as one resident suggested that the board had knowingly put the district’s students in danger. [Watch meeting video here.]
“Parents should not have to go on Facebook to find out that there was a threat,” Riverhead resident Laurie Downs said. “There’s phone calls not being made all the time — knives — all sorts of things going on at schools, and parents are not being told. That is a disservice.”
“We feel like information is being withheld from us,” said Aquebogue parent Yolanda Thompson.
“There was an investigation and there was no threat,” board president Susan Koukounas said.
“When there is a threat there is no investigation,” Downs interrupted her loudly. “You do what you have to do and then you investigate, you don’t investigate while the threat is going on.”
But board members last night insisted there was no threat to begin with.
“Trust me, if there was a threat, it would have been treated like all the other times we’ve had threats,” board member Greg Meyer said.
He recalled the series of bomb threats at local schools last year, as well as an incident at Phillips Avenue Elementary School last week when gunshots were heard near the school. During both incidents, the schools went into lockdown and parents were immediately informed.
“We take our children’s and staff’s safety very very seriously,” he said. “It’s number one in our book.”
The school district’s emergency management plan (available online) describes the steps the district takes in the event of an emergency, including contacting police, evacuating students and communicating with parents.
Because the social media post was not considered a threat, the emergency management plan was not put into action for this incident, Carney said.
Koukounas read aloud the school district’s full statement about the decision:
“Calls are made to all parents when there is an emergency that causes a disruption to building procedures or an emergency regarding students’ safety. Neither was the case in this situation. As the police determined, there was no viable threat to students in the building. A decision is made by the building principal or by me (Nancy Carney) as to the response of any emergency situation. Above all, a response to any situation is made on a case by case basis with a thorough review of the facts. There is nothing I take more seriously than student safety.
“In this incident, a student reported to administration seeing an inappropriate image on another student’s phone. No students or teachers were mentioned. The situation was addressed immediately in an appropriate manner. We appreciate when students or parents bring any inappropriate actions or situations to our attention so that we can address them. We commend the student for reporting this incident and we continue to encourage open lines of communication between students, parents and staff.”
Dawn Bozuhoski contributed reporting.
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