By the numbers
4: Bomb or other threats at Clark County schools this month
$14,000: Cost of evacuation, response to threat at Tecumseh High School on Oct. 16
1,100: Students who had to be evacuated at Tecumseh High School
In-depth coverage
The Springfield News-Sun digs into important stories about public safety issues, including recent coverage of a spike in fatal crashes and gun violence in Springfield.
Deputies have responded to multiple bomb threats in the past month at Clark County schools, meaning lost classroom time for students and wasted resources by first responders.
Most of the incidents have likely been pranks from students and copycats, investigators and school leaders said. But the threats still must be taken seriously, Clark-Shawnee Superintendent Gregg Morris said.
“The safety of our children is the most important thing we do,” he said.
The Ohio Department of Homeland Security has collected information on multiple threats statewide in a short period of time, Spokesman Dustyn Fox said.
The agency has sent out two bulletins this month to notify schools of the threats and remind administrators to stick to their school emergency plans.
When put into practice, Morris said those plans have worked perfectly.
Earlier this month, a student at Tecumseh High School wrote a threat on a bathroom stall. The school was evacuated to the football stadium and two hours of class time was lost, Tecumseh Superintendent Norm Glissman said.
The student who wrote the threat was caught, he said, but not before the sheriff’s department and bomb-sniffing dogs from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Dayton Airport Police responded.
In terms of man hours lost, Glissman was told that incident cost about $14,000.
Another threat followed at Tecumseh, but no evacuation occurred because the student who made it was quickly identified.
Greenon High School was evacuated this month after a student texted a bomb threat to herself.
And an investigation into a threat at Rockway Elementary School last week is still ongoing, Clark County Sheriff Kelly said, but deputies know two calls were made to the school.
Students were evacuated to Shawnee High School around noon Friday, he said, and lost the afternoon of instruction.
Parents want to believe school is a safe place for their kids, Rockway Elementary parent Erin Hannan said.
“Of course you are shocked that this would happen,” she said.
The elementary school handled it correctly though, she said, adding that with tragedies like the fatal shooting of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, “We can’t be too careful.”
Glissman expressed a similar sentiment. He worked as a high school principal in the early ’90s when a bomb threat was called into his school. He took all the necessary precautions, he said, but didn’t evacuate the school. Times have changed though, he said, and that was before the mass shooting at Columbine.
“(Now) in the back of your mind, it’s ‘What if?’” he said.
For students who have made a threat as a hoax to get out of school, Kelly wants them to know it’s, “most certainly not a prank,” and there will be consequences.
“If they’re trying to seek attention, this is certainly the wrong way to do it,” Kelly said.
Three students have been arrested for making bomb threats and will be charged as juveniles, he said.
When it comes to preventing these pranks, Glissman said evacuating students to a location where classes can continue might work for a smaller school. But that might not be possible at Tecumseh High School, which has about 1,100 students.
Tecumseh administrators have told students that what they might think is a funny joke is serious, he said, in hopes of preventing these threats in the future.
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