International Falls Daily Journal - Second threat closes school on Thursday - Comments

I know of one boy and his

gardennut — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:46:40 -0600

I know of one boy and his friends that were walking home - the school told them that if they had a way to get home - then just go. Isn't that against some type of a policy? Aren't the kids the responsibility of the school at this point? They should have NEVER been allowed to walk home if they were not living within a block or two. Not cool.

I truely believe that Langan

six-shooter — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:41:37 -0600

I truely believe that Langan owes this community a public meeting to answer questions face to face with the people who need these questions answered. His yacking in circles means nothing. I truely believe that how this went down was wrong and I won't settle for his tipping turning reasoning. This school district owes this to the people of IF.

Hello six-shooter...I caught

jbsfighter — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:23:53 -0600

Hello six-shooter...I caught Langans "public address" on local radio station at 4pm...don't know if it will be on again or not, apparently it is on in the morning normally, but they replayed it because of the important content. Anyway, facts according to him are they DID know about it by 7:15 am, he and Everson were at school by 7:30, and he says they chose not to send kids right back home because some kids were already at school, some busses do double runs, blah blah blah....I agree 100% bad call by administrators and reiterate once again, only now with more facts known, they should NOT have continued dropping kids off at school, I don't care what specifics the threat said or what age they believed them to be!!! Langan also said they were hoping to identify the person who made the call, brought teachers etc in to try to identify the caller in hopes to apprehend someone without closing school. GOOD GRIEF!!! They are not the police, not their job to apprehend anyone, especially someone who threatens violence. Not sure how Channel 3 news would know specifics of threat as Langan didn't state...maybe from law enforement. Bottom line, I stand behind all my blogs, especially with this statement from Langan, and no my child will NOT be going to school on Friday!!!

Ok I'll clue in on why some

viperboy — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:25:34 -0600

Ok I'll clue in on why some of us are unhappy, there was a bomb threat at 7 am they listened to it what 61 times or so, mean while they know that there has been a threat, but yet conduct business as usual, as our kids are sitting in class or in the school somewhere, while the staff at the school knows there is potential for a very bad out come to this, but yet they drug their feet until about 10 then decided "OH GEE THINK WE SHOULD GET THE KIDS OUT OF HERE, YEAH I THINK SO BUT HOW DO WE DO IT, WE BETTER WAIT UNTIL SOMEONE HAS TIME TO EXPLAIN WHAT TO DO , ALTHOUGH THIS HAS HAPPENED ATLEAST 10 TIMES HERE AND WE SHOULD KNOW WHAT TO DO BUT EHH I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION""HEY THINK WE SHOULD LISTEN TO THAT A MESSAGE AGAIN JUST TO BE SURE ITS A THREAT, I MEAN THE KIDS ARE STILL IN CLASS AND WE HAVE ONLY LISTENED TO IT 45 TIMES"... And yes i think the school district deserves every bit of it we leave our kids in your hands while we are supposed to be worry free at work and doing what we do while there at school, you really let us down.

Just heard on channel 3 news

six-shooter — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:49:08 -0600

Just heard on channel 3 news Duluth that the threat was to kill all in the school. The word kill is enough to make me sick. What in the world did they have to decipher here? Why was the police not brought in until 9:00? I still would like to know where the supervisor was if he was in town or did the have to wait until he got here? If that was the case is there noone but him that can make a judgement call? Even if the call was made in a voice that was of a young person why wouldn't you take it for what it said? Bad call by supervision. Very bad call.

Good points all and

Doorsman 54 — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:51:05 -0600

Good points all and concerned we should be. I would like to thank all the people who were involved in this process, I think it was 65 who said there will be a after the fact analysis about what we can do better next time. We have to thank so many, teachers, admins, officers, staff and lay people, the students themselves and parents and Pastor Tom, a man of Jesus if there ever was one. I saw how he handled his end of the crisis and his love and calmness was inspired by the power of faith in his God and savior. Great people all, now lets go find this --B!

Qualifications, Expierence,

Anton1965 — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:28:39 -0600

Qualifications, Expierence, Ability to show good judgement and leadership skills. I have no way of knowing the precise incident particulars but I do know that in this "New World" we have found ourselves in, the items listed above are more critical in todays world then yesterdays world with regards to allowing people to be hired or voted into any office that has any responsibility over our safety or our childrens safety. A very good look needs to be given to the qualifications and desire to have people in such positions as school superintendents, or any school administrators and certain reponse type people. This is not to say all did not do as well as they could have done, just a forewarning that we all need to be better prepared.

I too am glad no one was

concernedperson — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:56:00 -0600

I too am glad no one was hurt, things could have turned out so different in this situation. I hope the school board and administration have been made aware of the comments regarding this incident. I also hope that if something like this occurs again they have more than one back up place to place the children until they can dismis them. It would be a shame if they merely sent them to the same holding location only to have that be the real target. Lots to consider in a situation like this, sometime being the decision maker when something like this occurs is a difficult task. We sould be involved with the administration to help them come up with a series of contingincies for such situations, and not criticize for what we percieve as a failure on his part, such backbiting is not helpful. I know some of you are outraged, and angry but consider the size of such a task, 1200 students? And consider the message left on an answering machine, not having heard it myself I know how easy it is to take something out of its context. Not having all of the available facts I try to give our educators the benefit of doubt in this case. Lets all be reasonable and helpful in these type of situations. Its always easy after the fact to come with some type of judgement on the leaders in charge at the time, but we aren't them and just because we have a different opinion of what to do doesn't make our choices right either. I hope we never have a similar situation come up in the future, but with the state of the world as it is, I would think that making wise plans that are variable in nature would offer the most choices for safety of our communities greatest resource for the future.

EXACTLY! I have talked to

jbsfighter — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:52:12 -0600

EXACTLY! I have talked to parents that waited for their children to come home off the bus, but the bus left without them. So the parent had to drive to find them (they were at the church). As stated in my previous blogs, I feel the school acted too slowly, and like mentioned in someone else's blog, at the very least should have kept them all at the church or somewhere else if it was too late to send them right back home on the buses. The longer this goes on without a statement from the school explaining or informing us in more detail, the more people are going to doubt and criticize their actions. YES, the person(s) responsible for this has a problem, this is not something someone does just to get out of a test or to watch sport! If it is, then they still are in need of help!!! It should never be taken under conservative consideration as long as it was, indeed we should be thankful we were even threatened and not just blown up or whatever violent action this person is inclined to do. Like viperboy stated, this is not the emergency type incident for this school, and to the best of my knowledge (I know someone will correct me if I am wrong!!!!!) is the school told everyone that they had a "policy" (I am not sure if this is the correct word I am looking for, but anything else escapes me at the moment) in place and were prepared for such. I think Wednesday's incident should not have been a "learning experience"! They practice fire drills, why not practice a threat of violence drill??!!?? Viperboy, you're not alone, I am not sending my child back to school until there are some clear answers provided by the school, and I know EVERYONE involved in this threat is put somewhere where they cannot cause harm. I do not feel this is overreacting, there are lessons in life, there are lessons in school...I don't want my child's younger sibling to learn a lesson in life while my older child is learning a lesson in school! If you think I am overreacting, look back on all the school violence incidents: this was the terrorist(s) warning to us all that (they) have a problem! We should be thankful that we were warned first!!! I look forward to the truth coming out in all aspects of this. I am sure the individual teachers each did their best to help the children, I consider this more of an "administrative error" (unless I am ever told otherwise!)

God bless that everyone is

norpole — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:18:13 -0600

God bless that everyone is OK and that no one was hurt. It is a terrible thing that happened, but this is what is called the 9/11 world. I only hope that whoever has made these calls will be punished to the full extent of the law, and have to make restitution to the school for the criminal act they have committed.

L'etoile du nord

As you stated that you were

six-shooter — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:13:46 -0600

As you stated that you were glad they didn't send them to the arena, I hope that they change the location for a safer place for the children for that exact reason. I pray that this doesn't happen again. If this adult in the article you mentioned acted out of frustration and anxiety who's to know what the reason is for any of this and how they will or won't deal with whatever problem they might have. Even if and I say even a threat is a threat and should be treated like one. Like I said before when a fire alarm goes off whether it be false or not the building is evacuated. This alarm was no different. Get all to safety! Play guess what later.

And...coming out of the

Shannon Grinsell-Brade — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:52:20 -0600

And...coming out of the woodwork...

I think the school should be applauded for their efforts in trying to get the students to safety. That said, I also think their efforts should be examined and reevaluated to ensure that, in the future, if this happens again, the students are evacuated more quickly and efficiently. Possibly, as several of you mentioned, not even remove the children from their school buses and immediately bus them to a safe(r?) location.

When the bomb threat was called in while I was in school, we were all sent to the arena...I'm glad to see that they did not do that in this case. I always said that all it would take is someone to threaten the school and then blow up the arena instead. And...really...why would you even call in a threat if your main goal is to blow the place up???

According to this website: http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/articles/index.cfm?id=24923 there was a man convicted in MN of a false bomb threat on a local Walmart. There was nothing said about it being a federal crime. Is it different because it's a school? I don't know...

Whether it was an adult or a student who called in this threat shouldn't matter. Obviously there was nothing to it yesterday and the same caller made another threat in order to get school cancelled for today as well. My opinion? Someone really didn't want to miss that hockey tournament.

The problem i have with all

viperboy — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:18:25 -0600

The problem i have with all of this, is that, this has happened before many times, I have a child in that school and i attended it myself. Think back, not too far back but to the RedLake school shooting, there was warning signs there as with the other school shootings, but people wrote those off as something that wasn't going to happen then guess what many innocent people died, this was a threat, like in all of the other shootings, i think nobody really took this really seriously, people saying that they did the best the could have done, and you want to use this as a learning lesson. At who's expense your son's or daughter's expense, as i stated before this isn't the first time there has been a threat in this school they should have it perfected by now on what to do. I am in the group of people that feel school shouldn't have even been in session, why were the children there if there was a threat at 7 in the morning ? That gives about an hour to get on the phone and get the police there, get school canceled, so nobody showed up you could have done all of the debateing on how serious it was after the kids were out of the school, what if next time( god forbid) it isn't a prank or even a threat, and you guys at the school are still tripping over your feet trying to figure out what too do how many of our children are going to have to die before you figure out how to keep them safe?? I am still undecided if my child will ever step foot into another building owned by this school district my kids aren't safe there and yesterday you proved it!!!! You should have learned from the other schools mistakes and took into consideration this can happen anywhere, if this was your only test to see if you were ready you failed miserably, so get into a meeting get your heads together and make a plan to keep our children safe, rather than debating your wages...and too all of you that say oh I'm just glad my children are safe, remember they were in a building that could have blown up, and they were in there for 2 more hours while they tried to figure out something they should have already known...

I wonder if one of the

prstorsved — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:16:15 -0600

I wonder if one of the classes had a test that day and there was a student that did not want to take it. I would look at the timing of the two threats and see if it might correlate to a certain class and a exam that was meant to be held.

Everyone knows that you

maclean_ron — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:53:41 -0600

Everyone knows that you can't make EVERYONE happy. I think the school did their best in the situation at hand and the kids were all safely returned home. People are always gonna sit there and say well this should have been done or this shouldn't have been done or why didn't they do this etc. There is always gonna be a lot of controversy in any situation such as this and there are always gonna be what if's. The thing you need to look at now is that our kids are safe! The inncident is under investigation and our school officials and law enforcment are doing their best right now to catch the culprit.

Second threat closes school on Thursday

Journal Staff — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:39:15 -0600

Classes at International Falls schools have been canceled for Thursday after a second threat was called in declaring a bomb would be on campus at 11 a.m., according to school officials.

Evidence concludes that the caller was the same person who called in a threat of violence left on an International Falls school district message center Tuesday night, which resulted in students being sent home Wednesday morning.

The school district completed a campus sweep later Wednesday and found no exploding device, according to a news release issued late Wednesday.