ANDERSON – Anderson Community Schools interim Superintendent Tim Smith railed against social media Wednesday in a letter addressed to students, staff, parents and the community after about 150 students were kept home following an Anderson High School student's threat to bring a weapon to school.
The letter responds to the stress on schools in the wake of threats generated by incidents such as the school shootings that left 17 dead last week in Parkland, Florida.
“Social Media has become an unrestricted arena of fake profiles with messages intended to put fear into students, staff and communities. We as a community and society MUST stop believing everything we see and read on social media,” Smith said in the letter.
The missive followed district reports Tuesday about an Anderson High School student who threatened to bring a weapon to an active shooter drill originally scheduled for Wednesday. The drill was postponed.
Smith told The Herald Bulletin that about 150 students at Anderson High School and Highland Middle School, combined, were kept home from school on Wednesday. He said the absences this one time would be excused. The high school has an enrollment of 1,866 students; the middle school enrollment is 1,424.
“Those are the two buildings that, in all honestly, have had some connection to a threat or rumor,” he said.
Smith stressed that though every threat is taken seriously, there is no safer time than the present for students to be in school because of the district’s heightened security following the school shootings in Florida.
“Please do not use these threats and rumors as an easy excuse for students not to attend school,” he wrote. “On the days of 'announced' threats, these are likely the most safe days to send your children to school due to the increased staff and law enforcement presence in the buildings.”
Smith said the district has investigated as many as 10 threats since a Jan. 28 altercation involving teens at the end of January at Jackson Park. The day after the altercation, a handgun was found in a student's vehicle at Anderson High School.
The student, 17-year-old junior Riley Combs, was expelled from school and charged with a felony by Anderson police for bringing a gun onto school property.
“We don’t publicize every threat that we deal with,” said Smith, noting that almost all the threats received by schools are not credible.
“Almost 100% of our recent threats have been from profiles of non-students and have also been delivered to neighboring districts with the same exact names and formats used in Anderson,” he wrote in the letter.
Tuesday’s incident is one of two known threats involving Madison County students and one of several reported statewide since the school shootings in Florida. Madison-Grant also investigated a threat recently.
“I do not have the perfect answer to this question nor does anyone I have met in law enforcement or the world of educational leadership,” Smith wrote. “One thing we do know is this, when these horrible situations occur, schools across America face an increased number of threats, accusations and rumors that are historically unfounded.”