Two weeks after the string of bomb threats at Keyser Primary Middle School, the community can breathe a sigh of relief that the episode is finally and firmly in the past.
We were all walking on egg shells over the past week, waiting for the next ominous alert to go out over the scanner. Fortunately, that didn't happen and we appear to be out of the woods on the copy-cat, repeat offenses which so un-nerved parents and disrupted the school.
Belatedly, credit goes to Superintendent Skip Hackworth and his team for managing a crisis that has no set rules on how to respond. They were low-key with the first bomb threat and subsequent arrest, ratcheting up their response as the second, third and fourth days were disrupted with new threats.
Eventually, after low-key didn't work in stemming the bomb threats – each conveyed through a note – school officials essentially scared the students straight, clearly outlining the punitive measures that would be taken against any student caught making a threat, and even arresting the last of 10 charged students at school in front of his classmates.
It might not have been text book, but it worked.
Credit also goes to the Keyser Police Department, which only this year was allowed to provide security at the school after the city – at the school board's invitation – annexed the school property. That move paid dividends when Keyser police were among the first on the scene and when, after some good old fashioned police work, officers were able to identify suspects and file charges – in all but one case on the same day the threats were made.
Hindsight is 20-20 and with an episode such as this, involving very serious crimes committed by young people who ought to know better but sometimes don't, there are no easy answers. We would only note that the bomb threats stopped when school officials, including Hackworth himself, directly conveyed to the student body the very serious repercussions of making such a threat. The next time this happens, school officials may not want to wait to scare the students straight.
But that's Monday-morning quarterbacking. In the midst of a difficult episode that disrupted the lives and education of hundreds of students and their families, and which threatened to spin out of control with repeat offenses, the school system and local law enforcement handled the case capably and professionally, and put an end to the bomb threats.
A silent scanner has never sounded so good.
Keyser, W.Va. —
