Published Tuesday, May 11, 1999 A 12-year-old seventh-grade girl confessed Monday to police to writing the computer-generated note, which several girls found in a middle school bathroom; it said a bomb would explode at 11:30 a.m. in a classroom of a popular male teacher, Grove City Police Chief Richard Jazwinski said.
A juvenile petition will be filed charging her with making terroristic threats and disorderly conduct, he said.
She faces an expulsion hearing before the school board next Monday. Home instruction will most likely be provided, Superintendent Dr. Robert Post said Monday night.
The girl said she wrote the note as a joke and with the thought that it would lead to a day off of school, Post said.
"This is no joke and this will not be treated as such,'' he said as part of a statement at the beginning of the board meeting. Post noted that Jazwinski said the girl didn't have the means to make an explosive device and she and her parents are sorry.
Amid the rumors in the schools and the borough's beauty salons, Post said, children need "calm reassurance.'' And so the district is bringing in community members — ministers, law enforcement personnel, the mayor, school directors and others — to talk to middle and high school students Thursday and Friday. There will be room for a couple of parents, Post noted.
"What our students need most is a moral compass,'' he said.
Norm Edwards, a father of two students, said his son came home from the middle school last Wednesday with a sunburn and had missed lunch.
He asked why middle-schoolers weren't allowed to call home or leave while high school students were allowed to leave two days earlier when a bomb-threat was rumored.
Post said the high school rumors "got ahead of us" when students met for lunch in the cafeteria. "Quite frankly, a lot of high school students wanted the day off,'' Post said.
The middle school incident was different, he said, because a note was found and though officials figured it was the work of a student, they took it seriously enough to lead most of the students to the cafeteria for a quick lunch and then to the athletic field for about three hours.
The building was cleared an hour before the bomb was supposed to explode. Two searches turned up nothing, Post and police have said.
Administrators learned later that some students in an outside gym class missed lunch that day, but students were offered sunscreen, water, shade and a nurse outside, Post said.
Calls to the middle school were forwarded to Post's secretary, who read a prepared statement to concerned parents and invited them to the field. Some came to collect their children.
There was a phone at the fieldhouse and cell phones were available, he had said. Parents of about 20 children on a supposed "hit list'' were called but the rest were not.
When a few parents raised concerns Monday about parents not being immediately notified, board President Stephen Gould noted that five the directors have children in the district and as a board member his primary concern is for children. "Getting hold of me is the second most important concern,'' he said. "That's just my perspective.''
Middle school math teacher Dave Zinkham, whose child attends middle school classes, agreed. "At no time did I fear for my child's safety,'' he said. "I didn't even have to worry.''
In his roughly 40 years with the district, Zinkham said, he could remember only one similar incident — 25 years ago. "We handled it better now,'' he added.
Rumors of a bomb cropped up recently at Hillview Elementary, and another mother worried that she has often taken forgotten items to her child's classroom without being stopped. Principal Richard Bonnar said all visitors are supposed to stop at the office but often don't.
The alternative is to lock the doors.
"It's a dynamic interplay we have to keep discussing,'' Post said. "We want parents in the schools.''
