With a surge in school violence, administrators are on heightened alert for potential plots involving explosives, gun and knives. A school in Riverside County, California, may have stopped a potential mass attack by a fifth grader, who has been creating a “kill list” that included classmates’ names.
But parents are enraged by what the school did after uncovering the plan. Instead of harshly punishing the student, the school suspended him for just two days.
On Monday, Lake Mathews Elementary Principal Pamela Williams told parents that the school learned of the list on Thursday and reported it to the authorities. According to Williams, the authorities investigated and found no one was in danger.
“These types of behaviors are ALWAYS taken seriously by RUSD and therefore we immediately began an investigation, convened our site threat assessment team and notified law enforcement,” Williams wrote. “As a result of this comprehensive process, it was determined that there was, and is, no danger to any of Lake Mathews’ students.”
The school district hasn’t released any other details about the “kill list” itself.
The child was suspended for two days, but parents are not happy. Eighty-six parents sent a petition to the superintendent saying that if the child is allowed back they will not be letting their kids attend.
“I think that child shouldn’t go to that school anymore, maybe be put in, I don’t know, some other kind of school that … can take care of somebody,” said one parent. Another complained that they learned about the incident through social media, “I think the learning experience from this is to get information out sooner to parents to avoid all the hysteria,”
Despite the parents’ complaints, the school is adamant that everyone at the school is safe. “We believe that the school is safe, and there’s a lot that goes into saying that a school is safe,” said Justin Grayson of the Riverside Unified School District. “We wouldn’t want to, we would never say that a school is safe when we felt that it wasn’t.”
