MANSFIELD, Ohio – In the wake of two school safety incidents in the Mansfield area within the past two weeks, educators and local law enforcement continue to examine and improve upon school safety protocols when reacting to an emergency scenario, including the notification of parents.
On Sept. 30, St. Peter’s High School went into lockdown after a gunman was reported in the area. Less than a week later, Madison Comprehensive High School was evacuated after a teacher received a note with the threat of a bomb and a shooting. No students or school personnel were harmed in either incident.
According to Maj. Joe Masi with the Richland County Sheriff’s Office, the sheriff’s department as well as Richland County EMA reviews safety plans with county schools on an annual basis. He stated all school safety plans are up-to-date and effective.
“We have a very good rapport with the schools, we’re all on the same page,” said Masi. “The public entrusts the sheriff’s department and the board of education that when an event happens, we know what type of action to take and we’re going to try to the best of our abilities to keep their students safe.”
After a bomb threat was reported at Madison Comprehensive High School on Oct. 6, students were evacuated to the Madison Middle School gymnasium while law enforcement searched and eventually cleared the building.
Superintendent Lee Kaple said he was pleased with the calm, orderly reaction of the more than 1,000 students and staff members at the high school.
“Things went well, those are tough times but I think everybody did a fine job,” said Kaple on Oct. 7.
Kaple said the bomb threat was originally reported around 9:30 a.m. when a teacher discovered a threatening note slipped under their door, and students began evacuating around 11 a.m. per instruction from the Richland County Sheriff’s Office.
“We follow the lead of the sheriff’s office, they’re the ones controlling the situation,” said Kaple.
Masi said the length of time in between the discovery of the note and the evacuation of students was to allow for the investigation process. He explained after the discovery of the note, the teacher reported the information to administration who then called law enforcement. Once law enforcement responded the task was to view surveillance video and identify and locate the suspect, then interview the suspect and determine whether the threat was credible.
“You can’t have a knee-jerk reaction, as you’re doing the investigation you have to determine quickly and reasonably what action you’re going to take,” said Masi. “After interviewing her we couldn’t determine with 100 percent certainty whether there was a weapon or a bomb within the school, and without the certainty the decision was made to evacuate.
“We also had the perpetrator in our custody; she was unable to leave the office at that point, so keeping that in mind she would not have been able to carry out the threat at that point,” Masi continued. “But we still had to locate a bomb or weapon if there was one – the only way to do that in a calm way is to go ahead and evacuate the school.”
The student, a 16-year-old female, will serve a 10-day suspension and be recommended for expulsion, said Kaple. According to Masi, she has since been charged by the Richland County Prosecutor’s Office with inducing panic as a felony of the second degree.
“I’d like to see her charged as an adult because this is such a serious threat,” said Masi. “She can call it a prank, but in this day and age you don’t pull pranks like that. This isn’t something people can laugh about, in this day and age that’s a very serious threat when you talk about a shooting or bombs within the school system when people are getting hurt across the nation.”
Principal Michael Wasiniak was also thinking of current events when he called for St. Peter’s High School to be on lockdown after a man with a gun was reported within a block of the school. The school went on official lockdown shortly after 1 p.m. on Sept. 30 and remained in lockdown for 35 minutes, wherein all students remained inside their classrooms and away from any windows.
“We had people from the parish office come down to investigate and they actually thought the school was evacuated, it was so quiet,” said Wasiniak. “And that’s our intent in our building, when we have a lockdown nobody would know where anybody is except by the staff members.”
Wasiniak stated the school remained in lockdown until he received the all-clear from the Mansfield Police Department that the perpetrator had been taken care of.
“I was very happy with the general acceptance of everything,” he said. “With things having gone on around our country, we felt the need to focus on what we would do in this or that case. We’ll have a staff meeting [in the near future] to review our protocol and improve upon it as best we can.”
Parent Notification
The concern for law enforcement is safety and making sure the threat is eliminated as quickly as possible, Masi said. This priority outweighs other factors, including the immediate notification of parents regarding the situation.
“We certainly understand parents and their concern for their children, but the schools at that point are focused on taking care of the issue at hand,” said Masi.
During the Madison bomb threat, an update was posted as soon as possible to the Madison Local Schools website. Kaple stated the school communicates to parents as much as possible while also following the investigation process of the sheriff’s office.
“It takes time – you just can’t react to something until you know what’s going on, you need time to gather the facts and let the investigation continue, too,” said Kaple. “You want it to be as orderly a process as possible.”
Masi stated at Madison, the main concern of law enforcement that day was transporting students to a safe place.
“You don’t want an influx of parents coming to the school and creating a worse situation, and that’s why you want to get the kids moved to another location,” said Masi. “With social media nowadays I’m sure the word was traveling, but what we didn’t want – and what we didn’t have – was we did not have a chaotic situation where we had parents coming to the school and making the situation worse than what it was.
“I get that’s their kid and they should be concerned, but we have to make sure it doesn’t interfere with the operations of handling a situation and keeping it orderly and calm, and not interfering with handling a threat by the schools and our office,” he continued. “We don’t want anybody to jeopardize the way we have protocols in place.”
At St. Peter’s High School, Wasiniak said he encourages teachers to first call 911 and then notify him in the case of an emergency situation. The school encourages students not to hinder cell phone signals by trying to communicate during a lockdown.
“We try to encourage the students not to bombard information going out that in general could help somebody do more damage,” said Wasiniak. “We want to be careful in doing that. The safety of all our kids is number one, and then after that we definitely want the law enforcement agency to inform me first and then the next steps to be taken.”
Overall, Masi said he believes parents should focus on how well the situation was handled by the school system, law enforcement and the students themselves.
“We did our best to make sure the students are safe,” said Masi. “As a parent myself I would want to know about what’s going on with my child in that environment. But I also recognize that I trust the authorities that they’re going to do the right thing for my child.”
