The superintendent of the Alma School district addressed a series of questions on Monday after reports of an alleged “incident” in which a perceived threat that occurred last Thursday involving a high school student turned into a social media firestorm over the weekend.
“Hindsight is always 20-20 in these situations,’ said Dr, David Wooley, Alma superintendent. “I was unaware that this was even a topic of concern until someone called me at 2 p.m on Sunday and reported the posts on your social media site. At that time is when we posted our reply on the district site.”
Concerned parents had reached out to Inside Fort Smith late Saturday night after Facebook posts appeared saying a high school student had brought a gun to a classroom, that threats were made and that the school had filed to notify patrons in the district of the situation. In an effort to address those concerns a short “teaser” was posted on IFS saying we would contact the district on Monday.
That elicited responses and commentary that numbered into the hundreds within a few hours. Within fifteen minutes of the district posting their response on Sunday afternoon, IFS posted their explanation.
An email to the school district about the situation elicited phone call from superintendent Wooley on Monday morning.
“In regards to your question as to if there was ever a gun in a classroom — or even on campus for that matter — during the incident the answer is no, no, no and no,” said Wooley. “I hesitate to even call it an incident. It was a situation where a student made some inappropriate remarks during free time in a classroom during late afternoon period.”
Because of restrictions on what can be said about the student, Wooley said he was limited in the information he could provide.
“There was a small group of students talking during free time and the discussion turned to “911 and the World Trade Center” at which time one student made inappropriate comments about what he would do to the school” according to Wooley. “Some of the other students reported what he said to school personnel and the situation was dealt with immediately.”
“There was no gun, there was no ammo and there was no weapon that fell out of a backpack,” said Wooley. “It was just the conversation. I’m not saying the conversation wasn’t ill advised or inappropriate, but we dealt with it on the spot.”
Police were not called and the school district resource officer, who just happened to be on campus at the time, was called into the office to take part in the subsequent discussion.
“There was no need to ‘call’ the police because there was no threat to the safety of our students,” said Wooley. “Parents were not notified because there was nothing to notify them about. If we sent out text message every time there was an inappropriate conversation on campus we would be out of the education business and be in the email business.”
Wooley said had the incident risen to the level of danger to the safety of students or staff a team decision would have been made about whether notification to parents was appropriate.
“For any parent, you and I included, our first concerns for our children are their safety, their health and maybe then their education, said Wooley. “We take all three of those things seriously as should any school. We have spent thousands of dollars on student safety and that is one of the major things I addressed with our teachers before the school year even started.”
“People are going to say we were ‘forced’ to put that notice up on the district website, but Thursday, Friday and Saturday-right up until someone pointed out the social media situation on Sunday — I never thought it was something that we needed to address publicly,” said Wooley.
Wooley said everyone may not agree with that decision, but once again, hindsight is always 20-20.
“We’re all still learning about social media and interactions and anytime something is posted, especially concerning children, there is an instant reaction,” said Wooley. “We are not covering up anything here. Had we felt like there was any danger to anyone at anytime we would have reacted accordingly.”
