Standing Firm Amid Threats

As a senior, I’m tired of high school. As an 18-year-old, I could legally sign my way out of class without anyone questioning me. And recently, I had the perfect excuse to ditch: Someone threatened to bring a gun to campus and kill students.

I chose to go to school. It’s a decision no student should have to make.

After our school hosted a swim meet, a message was scrawled on the girls’ locker room wall that mentioned a lust for blood, possession by Satan (which the writer misspelled as “Satin”) and somewhere in this mess was the word “Friday.”

At another high school in our district the week before, 2,000 kids did not attend one day because there was a “hit list” that was supposed to be carried out. My school’s administration recognized that most students knew about our threat and it wanted to prevent the same reaction. The principal wrote a letter, which was given to every student to take home.

Although teachers and staff answered questions, which helped to stop most of the misinformation, rumors were still flying about who would be targeted (some said the scrawlings included something about “All the preps will die”), but most of us were calm after hearing that extra security officers and two sheriff’s deputies would join us on campus that day.

Because of the open way in which the incident was handled, many of us stopped worrying and began to dismiss the scrawlings as a sick joke.

Then on Wednesday, a girl was questioned by police because her friends said she had a weapon in her PE locker. Students speculated that she was either the one who planned to carry out the act or she knew the people who were going to shoot up the school and she wanted to get them first. This news made each of us think hard on Thursday night about whether to go to school or stay away.

The majority decision? We came. About 1,600 of the 2,200-member student body showed up. But the number of students there wasn’t the most important thing I will remember about that day. Instead, it was the attitude everyone held, a showing of a collective stance to not back down.

Students braved the situation in different ways, some with compassion extended to those who might have felt afraid, others with dark humor. A few wore T-shirts with bull’s-eyes on them. During a class discussion in which a teacher said it was easier to maneuver on campus since it wasn’t so crowded, a student joked that we should have weekly “Bomb-Threat Fridays.” All the kids laughed, releasing some of the tension.

What about the students who saw the situation as a great way to sleep in? In some families, kids were encouraged to miss school, so why wouldn’t they comply? I understand their reasoning, but in the end, I attended school that day because I, too, wanted to take a stand. I’m glad I was not alone.