MASON CITY – A teen was arrested this week after a threat was scrawled on a desk at the John Adams Middle School in Mason City.
Mason City police were called to John Adams Middle School 29 South Illinois Avenue, on Thursday morning, October 5 at about 8:39 AM. Officers arrested a 13-year-old student after taking a harassment report.
Friday, the school district said in a statement that “we want to assure you, the district has not received any kind of threat to any building or any persons in the district today.”
According to the school district, on Monday at John Adams Middle School there was an incident of a student leaving a disturbing message on a desk “that was not an immediate threat to any person or a building. From the moment we discovered the message, at no time was any student’s safety in jeopardy.
“Safety of our students and staff is our number one priority and school administration immediately investigated with the situation resulting in the student being suspended from school. The matter at that point was turned over to MCPD.
“We know that parents and families are feeling scared and concerned and anxious about the safety of their loved ones. We apologize for any confusion in regards to the timing of the reporting of this incident.”
The Mason City school district also clarified that the incident at John Adams was not connected to another statement from the school regarding threats that have been popping up in the area (Algona and Estherville among them) and across the country.
In addition, the district days “the school district has not been made aware of any additional threats since the issuance of its statement on Wednesday and wishes to assure its students, parents, staff and community that we will continue our commitment and resolve to keep safety our number one priority and communicate to the best of our ability with you all of the information at our disposal.”
I heard some parents were upset because the school did not notify any parents about the threat
I got two emails,so that is false.
This incident happened on Monday Oct. 2, us parents were NOT notified about this by the school district until Friday Oct. 6th. Parents were sent an email on Oct. 4, about the recent threats to local schools around us, having nothing to do about the threat on Monday the 2nd. Us parents WERE ABSOLUTELY NOT NOTIFIED IN TIME!!!! Plus, who gets to judge that our students were in danger or not. Obviously not the teacher who found the threat, because that teacher decided to EMAIL the police, which was not received until Tuesday afternoon by local law enforcement.
You weren’t notified in “time for” what? What would you have done if you had been notified?
It sound like the administration made a judgement call on the threat (the correct one it seems). It was a child being cute and making a mistake. If parents worried as much about raising their children as they do about crying over nothing it would be a better world. This is what the administrators are paid to do. Good job.
“leaving a disturbing message on a desk “that was not an immediate threat to any person or a building. ”
Who’s to say what the message was? Why are we all assuming that the threat was directed to your child?? Whats with all these soccer moms and some sick fantasy that everyone wants to harm their child??
I also heard from some parents that they weren’t worried and that there was no reason to over-react especially since nothing happened.