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Posted threat disrupts field trip

Hollidaysburg Senior High student allegedly threatens classmates

A Hollidaysburg Area Senior High field trip charter bus returning from Washington, D.C., Wednesday was met by police after students reported a threatening social media post from a student on board.

A Snapchat directed at four specific, though unnamed, students read: “I got 4 bullets with ur names on them.”

A subsequent post withdrew the threat.

Those Snapchats came after one that expressed disgust with the way students seated around the student were laughing about the topic of mental illness.

The Snapchats were saved by some students and shared with the Mirror by a parent who said the district should have notified the public about the incident.

There were three charter buses full of students on the trip. Adam Anneski of Duncansville said his son was on the trip.

“I still have a daughter in sixth grade coming up through the junior high and high schools,” Anneski said. “I’m still going to be here for six more years. I don’t need this to be even worse years from now.”

He said the district should not “bury” these kinds of incidents from public awareness. He expected it to be in the news earlier, but not seeing it, he called the Mirror Friday morning.

“All these matters should be open to a public forum. I value my knowledge in what is going on,” he said. “If you hide it, it festers and continues to be a lie. If you bring it to the light, only the truth will come out.”

Police, Principal Maureen Letcher and Assistant Prin­cipal Mark Harrington and the student’s parents met the bus upon its return to the school at 11 p.m. Wednesday.

Letcher said she wholeheartedly agreed that the district must inform parents of the incident and said a message was sent out to them Friday.

However, she said the district was busy Thurs­day tending to the people most affected by the incident.

“We were taking care of the students who were here and their needs. That took the entire day. It affected a lot of people,” she said. “Students on the trip were our priority. They had questions and wanted to meet with us. And we did need to send a message to parents. We didn’t want to hide anything; we just wanted to take care of parents and students most affected by it first.”

She emphasized the fact that the threat was mitigated because students and parents responded quickly by dialing the Safe2Say Some­thing hotline — a youth violence prevention program run by the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney Gen­eral.

The program teaches youth and adults how to recognize warning signs and signals, especially within social media, from individuals who may be a threat to themselves or others and to “say something” before it happens.

“Within 10 minutes of student posting that comment, we had multiple calls to the Safe2Say Something hotline, and direct calls to administration informing them,” she said.

Letcher was at home Wednesday night when she received a call from a Safe2Say Something hotline worker. The worker in­formed Letcher that she was calling police and needed information regarding the student at the source of the threat.

“I’m very proud of our students for using the Safe2Say system,” she said. “Princi­pals automatically get a text on their phone. I got it right away. A Safe2Say worker directly called me and told me she was contacting the police. If someone is in harm’s way, they immediately call police for us.”

Letcher called the parent of the child and arrived at the senior high school at 10 p.m. to meet the bus when it arrived at 11 p.m.

“During the entire time I was in communication with the chaperone who had the child who supposedly sent the threats,” she said. “I offered to send police to them. But she perceived no threat at the time and said the bus will come to the school.”

Letcher declined to give specific details about discipline or placement for the student. “Police are taking care of charges, and the student code of conduct was followed,” she said.

Hollidaysburg Borough Po­lice Chief Rod Estep was out of the office on Friday and could not be reached for information about potential charges.

Letcher’s background is in counseling.

“Mental health issues are real,” she said. “People who don’t experience it want to chalk it up to bad parenting and bad behavior, but sometimes it’s much deeper than that,” she said. “It’s hard for those of us who don’t have mental health issues to understand that reality.”

She repeated her statement that she understood the importance of communicating the incident to the larger school district community.

“I do understand parents need a message sent to them. We did it as soon as we could, but we needed to investigate and take care of everyone.

“People were coming to us with a lot of questions. ‘Are we safe?’ ‘Is it ok for my child to be at school?’ Our number one job is to ensure the 1,000 people at this school every day are safe.”

Mirror Staff Writer Russ O’Reilly is at 946-7435.

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