2/23/18
(Cleveland)- School threats and student safety is constantly being talked about lately and White County Board of Education took several minutes during their meeting Thursday night to discuss the issue. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jeff Wilson shared with the board the many different avenues that they use in addressing school safety.
Wilson said they will continue to add to those options, “ we going to continue to look at ideas, we have other ideas we are going to look at that might be some things that we as a school system want to do to ensure safety, and we will be bring those forward,” said Wilson.
Dr. Wilson said a costly item, mental health advisers, could help the situation saying “ I truly believe that if we could hire a mental health counselor at the middle school and a mental health counselor at the high school it would really help diminish the opportunity for somebody to come in and do this, and it is a cost and it is something we have to talk about,”
He further stated, “ we are in very deep discussions about alternative school and offering some kind of alternative school setting.”
Wilson said the school system had, prior to the recent Florida school shooting, scheduled an Emergency Drill at one of the schools during the upcoming Spring Break and White County Emergency Management Agency Director David Murphy and Georgia Emergency Management Agency officials will be doing a safety walk through next week checking out safety concerns at each of the county schools.
Prior to the safety discussion the board heard from a concerned parent, Carla Puchstein who, on one hand complemented the school on the handling of a recent school safety concern, but then expressed concern about the handling of a threat overheard by her daughter back in October at the Middle School in Cleveland.
She told the board that if the boy, who allegedly made that threat, is allowed to come back to school she will take her daughter out of the school system.
School Board Chairman Missy Jarrard told her, “ we hear you, we’re making notes and will talk about everything.”
Dr. Wilson you want to talk about costly what about kids lives here, Yeah my son Jason Harper was attacked in the 7th grade by another student the boy walked up in computer lab , and beat him so bad , my son was left there lifeless , I couldn’t watch the video I was told not to , and the SOR was at the 9th by the time he got there the student was already released to his parents, . The teacher seen the kid come after my child nothing was done, but a slap on the wrist, it’s ok don’t do it again, . My son had liver surgery in June to remove a mass thank God everyday that Jason is still here with us, because y’all’s system failed again. Like elementary school, I told my son it would never happen again, look it did . Stop worrying about money and worry about these kids lives. . God bless yall..
Private school!!
My daughter did not “ over hear the threat”. The threat was made directly to her with the boy stating “ I’m going to shoot up this school, and when I do, you will be the first one I shoot.” I was not notified until 7:30pm that evening by the 7th grade school support coordinator.. police were NOT even notified. This was not the first time this boy had spoken about shooting up the school. The boy also kept talking about, and encouraging others to watch a video on a school shooting which he supposedly found “funny”…check the video out by googling “Pumped Up Kicks school shooting video”.
It took me going into the school the following day and advising the Principal that she either notify Law Enforcement ASAP, or that I would press charges myself. Law Enforcement was notified, the boy arrested, and per the DA the case is cut and dry.
I was told by the Superintendent via phone, just a few weeks ago, that this boy would be allowed back into mthe middle school this upcoming school year.
My daughter also wrote a statemement, which I read at the BOE meeting as well.. typical for this to be minimalized, with so many facts being LEFT out. Horrible journalism!!!
Carla Puchstein