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ROGERS CITY -- Parents hesitated to send their children to school on Wednesday after they heard a Rogers City Middle/High School student allegedly threatened to bring a gun to school.
Police investigated the alleged threat for 12 hours on Tuesday, following a scuffle between students at the school Tuesday morning, and determined no threat involving a school shooting was ever made, according to Rogers City Police Chief Jamie Meyer.
On Tuesday evening, police closed their investigation and cleared school officials to conduct classes on Wednesday.
Rogers City Area Schools officials sent an emergency alert to parents around noon on Wednesday, saying no threat had been made and school was still in session. School officials declined further comment about the incident.
Parents on Wednesday told The News they needed the school to provide more information about what happened on Tuesday and said they and their children are frightened by the alleged threat.
"All us parents, we make comments out in public, at the grocery store," said Rogers City High School parent JoAnne Muller, speaking of the emotional toll of recent reports of threats of school violence around the state. "'Oh, gosh, wonder when it will be here.' It's like you're waiting. It's like that dark cloud."
Only about half of students at Rogers City's high school and junior high, which share one building, attended class on Wednesday, school officials estimated. At the start of the high school's school day, almost no vehicles were parked in the high school's usually full parking lot.
Paula Werth, whose two daughters are seniors at the school, said her children were concerned about their safety and didn't feel comfortable going to school on Wednesday.
"My daughter told me she wasn't going, and I told her she didn't have to," Werth told The News on Wednesday. "We didn't hear anything from the school and didn't receive anything from the police until this morning. We had to hear about it from our kids, who are filled with anxiety."
She won't send her daughters back until the school expels the student she believes made a threat, Werth said.
While Meyer maintained that the police investigation turned up no actual threat, parents hearing rumors of an alleged threat on social media might understandably be concerned or upset by that news, the police chief said.
Cassie Stone's son, Bradley, wanted to go to class Wednesday, but she decided against allowing him to go until she learned more, she told The News on Wednesday morning. She said bullying, threats, and a recent school shooting downstate have left many parents with high stress levels while their children are at school.
Police say a 15-year-old student shot and killed four students and injured seven others at Oxford High School on Nov. 30. Since that shooting, schools across the state have closed because of threats of violence allegedly made by students.
Threats of violence recently closed schools for several days in Alpena and Cheboygan.
"It's terrifying," Stone said. "With the fallout from Oxford being so close to home, it makes having your child in school stressful and worrisome."
Muller's son, one of several witnesses to the altercation at the school, on Tuesday was called to the principal's office, where he was asked about the fight.
Her son heard one student involved in the fight threaten to kill people the next day, Muller said.
"They are basically calling my son a liar," Muller said. "Every single kid who saw and heard what happened has the exact same story."
Officials said no threat involving a school shooting was made but did not specify if the student threatened any other kind of violence.
The school should have dismissed students when a threat was reported, believed students' stories, and, most importantly, kept parents informed about the incident, Muller told The News.
"It should've been a done deal," Muller said, saying the school should have closed immediately when a student reported the alleged threat. "Especially when the words 'gun' and 'threat' are used in the same sentence. Absolutely."
Waiting to act ― and denying a problem existed ― led to the four deaths at Oxford, Muller said.
"Why are we waiting for that to happen here?" Muller wondered. "Because it's Rogers City, and we think that will never happen here."