Fish Out of Water

Bomb threats close Mashpee High - An Overreaction?

My oldest child attends Mashpee High School -- he's in seventh grade. So we've been watching events at the school this academic year with particular interest; today is the fourth time since the beginning of the year that there has been a bomb threat at the school.

This, unfortunately, isn't a new trend. It happened last year too. So far none of the threats have turned out to be credible -- it just seems to be a prank being played on the students and faculty by other students at the school. It's a sick prank, for sure. And disruptive.

"Disruptive" took a new meaning this morning. We got a call shortly after 8:00; a pre-recorded message from Lou Ann St. Cyr, the school principal, announcing that school would be dismissed and students sent home at 8:45 this morning following the discovery of yet another alleged bomb threat scrawled on the bathroom wall: "This School Blows February 15, 2008."

We weren't directly affected -- my son's been home for the past couple of days, down with a viral infection that's kept him coughing and feverish (something's going around, according to our pediatrician).  

I could have some fun diagramming that sentence: Insert a comma between "Blows" and "February" and the sentence takes on new life, for example, and it's a sentiment I'm sure that many students share. But sarcasm aside, this is getting more than irksome.

On one hand, as a parent, I appreciate the safety that the school administration is demonstrating by getting the kids out. On the other hand, as a working parent, I recognize that this deeply affects the ability for two-income families (such as ours) to care for their children. I'm fortunate in that I work from the house, so I can keep an eye on our kids when they're sick or sent home early. But under different circumstances, my wife or I would have had to leave work early today (or taken a personal day to begin with).

On one hand, I'm glad to see the school and the local constabulary take the threat seriously enough to evacuate. On the other hand, I have to wonder how often this is going to happen until it's fixed.

And how, ultimately, is it going to get fixed? Perhaps I'm betraying my cynical nature by suggesting that teaching some adolescents common sense is a bit like trying to teach a fish how to ride a bicycle; no matter what we do, some kids just aren't going to get the message that scrawling a bomb threat on the wall of the boy's lav is wrong, stupid and dangerous. I remember being 14, and I remember how disenfranchised I was and how much contempt I felt for many of my peers, for my teachers, for my parent, for just about everyone and everything in a position of authority.

But what's the alternative? To put every inch of the building under closed-circuit surveillance, including bathrooms? To install metal detectors, have cops with bomb-sniffing dogs roam the hallways, conduct random locker searches, or worse? I don't want to see Mashpee High turned into a police state, either. 

I'm not offering any solutions here. I'm curious as to what you think we parents of Mashpee High students should do, really. Should we just let administrators and officials do what they're doing? Should we have heart to heart talks with our kids? "Now son, don't make any idle bomb threats..." Should we be pushing the schools to install better security? What do you think?