WITH VIDEO: APS superintendent, prosecutor: school threats not worth it
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ALPENA -- Threats have serious consequences, schools and law enforcement officials want kids to know.
In an eight-minute presentation recorded on Monday at the Alpena Public Schools central office, APS Superintendent David Rabbideau and Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski outlined what could happen to students who threaten violence toward a school, school staff, or other students.
Such consequences -- from juvenile probation to out-of-community detention -- could seriously impact a student's life, Muszynski said into a camera recording the conversation, which APS 5th grade teachers will share with their students in coming days.
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The district will also embed the video on its website and share it with parents in other ways, Rabbideau said.
School officials had to twice reschedule the presentation, originally scheduled to be livestreamed to 5th grade classrooms on Feb. 4.
The presentation targets 5th graders because, as Rabbideau tells them in the video, as the oldest students at their schools, they model behavior for younger students to follow.
Educators know students need to hear something many times before they've learned it, said Rabbideau after the videotaping, encouraging parents to speak to their children about the seriousness of threats, even those intended as jokes.
"We know we need to say things over and over and over," Rabbideau said, "making sure everyone knows that we're not playing around."
Threats against schools victimize other students and their families, who have to address the fear such a threat can cause, Muszynski said.
Following an incident last week in which school officials removed a student from an APS bus after the student vandalized a seat with a knife, someone commented that they thought the prosecutor had spoken to the students about threatening behavior, Rabbideau said.
"As if that would have solved everything, the one time," he said. "If you've said it once, it's not enough."
In January, Muszynski filed charges against a Thunder Bay Junior High School student accused of making a gun-related school threat in December.
Charged as a minor with with terrorism or false report of terrorism, the student could face a range of repercussions, up to removal from the community and placement in a juvenile detention center either before or after conviction, Muszynski said.
The prosecutor is completing her review of police reports and followup conversations regarding three threats allegedly made by Alpena High School students -- at least one involving mention of a gun -- on separate occasions in December and January.
She hopes to decide this week whether to file charges in those cases, Muszynski said.
Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jriddleX.