2008 Woodie Awards
Girard High locked down after threat
Greg Grisolano
Issue date: 5/3/07 Section: Front Page
| Friday was a "pretty strange" day for Girard senior Curtis Thom. Thom, 18, was one of about 350 students who were at Girard High School when the building was placed into a lockdown after a school shooting threat was called into the Crawford County Sheriff's office on Friday morning. "I thought it was just a precautionary thing," Thom said. "Then the teachers started getting a little frantic, and you could tell by their faces this wasn't planned." Despite the unease, the worst part for Thom was simply being locked in the building. "Within 15 to 20 minutes they had cops everywhere out checking cars in the parking lot for weapons, they had teachers at every exit," he said. "I felt safe in there, but by the end of the day, it started to feel like cabin fever." Crawford County Sheriff Sandy Horton says his office received a 911 telephone call Friday morning, calling in a threat to the high school and the Crawford County Courthouse. Horton says the courthouse, which has metal detectors at all the doors and a security detail of sheriff's deputies, remained open for business all day. "It's unfortunate that the call did occur," he said. "Fortunately, there have been no incidents." Horton says his office has not developed a suspect yet in its investigation. Although school officials and the sheriff's office say they took the threat seriously, they did not evacuate Girard High School or the other schools in USD 248, nor did they cancel a track meet at GHS scheduled for Friday afternoon. "I think it's a reasonable thing to do," said Gary Snawder, USD 248 superintendent, about the decision not to cancel the track meet. "We informed all the schools that were coming of our situation so they could make their own decision." Tom Stegman, assistant principal at GHS, says the school's emergency action plan doesn't call for an evacuation in this situation. "This is one of the safest places we can have our students," Stegman said. "What we can do is go ahead and do our safety procedures and ensure the safety of our students. I'm not going to tell to tell you evacuation isn't one of our procedures. It just depends on the situation." Stegman says they also notified all the parents through the School Reach emergency alert system, which automatically telephones all the parents with a recorded message. In a lockdown, Stegman says the doors to the building are locked from the outside. Staff patrol the hallways and make sure students are in classes. "We make sure we secure the facility, so we know where everyone is," he said. "We make sure we have someone at the access doors to meet people, so we know who is in our building at all times." In spite of the lockdown, Stegman says students and teachers conducted classes as they would on a regular school day. No lockdown in Pittsburg Although it was reported by one media outlet that Pittsburg High School also went into lockdown, PHS Principal Mike Philpot said that report was incorrect. "We did not go into lockdown," he said. "We're always on alert every day. Our doors are locked, we have exterior cameras and we have three administrators on duty in the hallways before classes, between classes and after classes." Philpot says he wasn't surprised by GHS's decision not to evacuate the school. "I think they probably did the right thing," he said. "All Kansas schools have crisis plans, and I'm sure they enacted theirs." To be on the safe side, Philpot says he and other administrators at PHS decided to withdraw from competing in the GHS track meet. "They've been under a lockdown all day," he said. "Our staff didn't feel comfortable taking our kids over there in that situation." |
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