130 Students Stay Home —

High School Responds To Shooting Rumor

By Jeff White

A rumor of a potential shooting that surfaced late in the school day Tuesday spawned an increased police presence and an administrative response Wednesday, as security was noticeably tighter throughout the high school. Although school officials quickly tracked down the source of the rumor, 130 students still opted to stay home from school that day.

“Toward the end of the day [Tuesday] there was a rumor heard by some kids that there was going to be a shooting [today],” high school Principal Bill Manfredonia confirmed Wednesday morning.

The rumor spun off of an overheard conversation, Mr Manfredonia explained. A student was busy recounting to a friend a recent dream that involved a shooting. Some students sitting near this conversation heard the word “shooting,” and immediately began to think the worst. Before long, according to Mr Manfredonia, the rumor was in full circulation.

Toward the end of the day Tuesday, students brought their concerns to Mr Manfredonia and the school’s assistant principals. “Obviously, we took it seriously,” Mr Manfredonia said. It was not long that school officials were able to find the student who was having the conversation about a shooting in a dream. Mr Manfredonia said that after a long discussion with the student, “we were solid about how this rumor started.”

Still, students went home and related the rumor to their parents. School officials disconnected their usual answering machine and fielded phone calls from concerned parents well into Tuesday night. As a precaution, Mr Manfredonia notified the Newtown Police Department about the situation, and obtained added security for Wednesday’s school day.

For Mr Manfredonia, it was simply a matter of being more safe than sorry. “I would be overly cautious, that’s why I asked for a police presence. I would prefer to err on the side of safety.”

Police cruisers were parked in plain view at the front of the high school’s senior lot Wednesday. School Resource Officer Gladys Pisani, who usually divides her day between the high school and middle school, canceled her middle school rounds in order to keep a full day’s watch at the high school. Patrol officer Jeff Silver, who watched over the school’s cafeteria, joined her.

Both assistant principals spent the day walking around the school, keeping in touch via radio with Security Director Richard Novia.

“We did school today,” Mr Novia commented, noting that despite the rumor the school day was progressing normally.

Mr Novia still spent much of Tuesday night fielding phone calls, both at school and at home, from concerned parents and students. As morning traffic inched its way up to the high school Wednesday, parents got reassurance from him that everything would be safe and secure.

As evident by boisterous lunch periods, many students who came to school Wednesday had not put a lot of stock in the rumor, and were carrying on as if it was just another school day.

Senior Ray Reynolds heard the rumor the day before. “I didn’t think much about it,” he said. “You wouldn’t think anything would happen around here.”

But Shannon Solhiem, a senior who chose to stay home from school Wednesday, saw enough of a threat to make her want to take precautions. “I’m glad I stayed home, because just the chance of being in school with a threat, I don’t know how much I would have been concentrating. I would have been more concerned with what was going on in the school.”

Shannon, whose mother called other parents and the police department to substantiate the rumor, said that she knew of at least 20 of her friends who did not go to school that day.

With no incidents to report by the end of school Wednesday, it appeared that the incident would blow over.

Given the pervasiveness of school violence over the last year, this week’s rumor at Newtown High School tapped into some deeply held fears of parents in the school system. Yogi Jones of Berkshire Road, who initially kept his two daughters home from school, remarked that everything changed after the tragedy at Columbine High School.

“A year ago, I wouldn’t have given [the rumor] a second thought,” he said. “But with the climate in our society, I thought it better to err on the safer side.”

Mr Jones went to the high school Wednesday morning, and after talking with a number of school officials he felt confident enough to send his daughters, a senior and a sophomore, back to school.

The fact that the past year’s headlines have placed an added consciousness in how society approaches the prospect of school violence was manifested in how students handled the rumor. Mr Manfredonia gave credit to the students who upon hearing the rumor reported immediately to his office.

“I’m so pleased by this, and I commend them,” he said. “That is what we want them to do.”