HLV investigates threat

VICTOR — Parents of HLV students received a message Sept. 5 of a possible threat against the school.

Some parents weren’t happy with the way the situation was handled or with the outcome of the investigation and told the school board so during a meeting Sept. 11.

Parents were notified electronically the evening of Thursday, Sept. 5 that school officials and the Iowa County Sheriff’s Department were investigating a possible gun threat posted on social media.

Parents were informed Friday evening, after an investigation that lasted nearly 24 hours, that the threat was not credible.

But some parents weren’t buying it, said Paul Sauter. About 20 of them attended the Sept. 11 school board meeting to express their frustration with how the district handled the situation.

  Buy Photo

“I’m very new to the community,” Sauter told the school board. He said he grew in post-Columbine, Colorado, so he probably has a different perspective than other parents in the small Iowa County town.

Sauter said he supported the board and that the safety improvements the school has made — listed on a document provided to parents at the meeting — were good.

But school officials needed to answer more questions for parents who were hearing rumors and reading reports on Facebook.

  Buy Photo

“There’s a lot out there that can be wrong,” said Sauter. School officials needed to address that.

Discussion of the incident was not on the agenda, so board members could only listen to parents’ comments.

During an interview with The Hometown Current before the meeting, HLV Superintendent Brad Hohensee said the school implemented its safety plan as soon as Hohensee received word of the possible threat. “And it worked perfectly,” said Hohensee.

The 63-page document was created with input from Iowa County Emergency Management, the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office and the Victor Fire Department and details procedure for dealing with possible threats than active shooter situations.

The document is not for public distribution, said Hohensee. Law enforcement can’t keep people safe if everyone knows their plans, he said, but the plan worked as it was supposed to.

Hohensee said school officials were made aware of a social media post after school Sept. 5 suggesting that a student was planning to take a gun to school.

School officials met with the Iowa County Sheriff’s Department and sent a notice about the situation to parents.

“We take all threats seriously,” said Hohensee.

  Buy Photo

The sheriff’s department investigated Thursday and Friday and found no evidence that the threat was credible, Hohensee said. “Iowa County Sheriff’s Department was very helpful,” he said.

While Hohensee admitted that “a lot of people had questions,” he said only two had asked to meet with him, and he complied with their requests.

Many of the questions parents had stemmed from inaccurate information on Facebook, Hohensee said.

Some parents didn’t send their children to school Friday, Sept. 6, Hohensee said, and that’s their prerogative. Law enforcement was present at the school Friday, he said.

“Kudos to Iowa County law enforcement in keeping students safe,” Hohensee said.

“We know you have concerns,” Board President Dave Doran told parents.

Some parents were not happy with the answers they received, Doran acknowledged, but everything the staff told him was confirmed by Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter.

There was no evidence that a child said he was going to “bring something” to school, he said.

Doran said that Rotter told him “the rumor mill got carried away and out of control.”

Doran said he could not divulge details of the investigation and that the student in question should not be named because he is a minor.

Parents in the room said they all know the name of the student in question and that he is rumored to have been expelled from a previous school. Some parents said they had to right to know why, if that reason involves threats of gun violence.

D.J. Pirkl told the school board that she’d heard the threat was made on Snapchat and that no one had taken a screenshot so there was no proof that the threat had been made.

But several people saw the post, said Pirkl. “Who do you listen to?” she asked. To a student who denies it, or to all the people who saw the post?

Pirkl wondered what the punishment is for making a threat against the school and if the student will be disciplined for it.

“Is he being searched daily?” she asked. “Is his backpack being searched daily?”

Pirkl said she heard that the school knew about the threat earlier in the week but didn’t inform parents until Thursday night.

Chad Timm asked why parents weren’t told until 8 p.m. Friday that the threat was not credible. They spent an entire day worried about it.

Jeri Coufal said that parents didn’t know enough about the situation. “Everything is secret,” she said. But she assumed something happened or nothing would have been reported.

“You kind of left us in the dark,” said another parent. “Why hide it if it’s on social media?”

The shooter in the Sept. 4 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia made threats a year beforehand and was investigated by the FBI and the sheriff’s department yet was not prevented from shooting people at the school, the parent said.

Just because the HLV student in question told police he didn’t make a threat doesn’t mean anything, the parent said.

Melinda Chandler agreed. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” she said.

Chandler chastised school officials for doing nothing to help students emotionally. “I don’t see you doing anything to help children’s anxiety,” she said.

Children don’t want to come to school anymore, said Chandler, her voice shaking. “What are you doing to ease those feelings of these kids.”

Chandler said she violated the school’s cellphone policy Sept. 6 because she wanted her child to have a phone on her in case something happened.

“The phone policy. is not going to work for me, “ said Chandler said.

Chandler didn’t want to send the child at all, she said, but did so because of new truancy rules set by the state.

Chandler said she doesn’t want to send her child to HLV as long as the student who allegedly posted a threat remains at the school.

Shelby Foster claimed that students reported the Snapchat threat to faculty members and their concerns were dismissed. She had heard that the threat was reported Monday but not investigated until Thursday, she said.

Chandler doesn’t know the student in question, she said, but parents need to know if he’s been making threats. HLV doesn’t need to have students enrolling out of the district because they don’t feel safe, she said.

“Your children are safe here,” Doran said following public comments. “I know how this gets blown out of proportion.”

Doran said parents need to help the school “to squash all the rumors.”

“We’ve got to protect every child that’s in this school,” said Doran, and that includes the student who is being accused of making threats.

School Board Member Blake Kuesel said he sent his first grader to school the day after the alleged threat. “I feel our school is safe,” Kuesel said.

Perhaps the school should have communicated better, he said, but school officials dealt well with the situation.

“Beau does need recognition for what he did behind the scenes,” said Kuesel. Beau Jack is the director of student services.

“I will echo that as well,” said board member Ryan Kupka.

You can only believe half of what you see online, Kupka said. “I talked to administrators,” he said, not to people on social media. “It was handled right. The action plan did work.”

HLV has 282 students in kindergarten through 12th grades.