Almost half of the students at Bel Air?s C. Milton Wright High School stayed away from class today after a threatening letter was received by school officials on Thursday.
School security and Harford County Sheriff?s deputies were standing guard at several of the school?s entrances, and were expected to remain in their posts throughout the day.
“When I was dropping my son off, you could see the concern in these kids? faces,” said Terry Radd, who has a son and a daughter attending C. Milton Wright.
Her daughter, a senior, stayed home and missed the last of her final exams.
“She didn’t even care about that, she just didn’t want to be there in that situation,” Radd said.
Junior Erika Kahl said as she left school at midday Friday that she and other students had not thought much of the warning, but that tensions seemed high amid the faculty and staff. Fellow junior Andrew Jones said one student was disciplined for carrying a bottle opener with a corkscrew on it.
About 5,000 parents received an automated telephone message Thursday night advising them of the letter threatening violence against the students.
Despite the fact that senior exams are under way, about 50 percent of the student body was absent when school opened, said schools spokesman Don Morrison.
School officials met with Sheriff Department officials to discuss the nature of the written threat, which neither Morrison nor police could make public while the investigation was ongoing.
“We would not have opened the school if we feltthere was an imminent threat,” Morrison said. “The school?s operating as normally as we can under the circumstances.”
Sheriff?s deputies from the Patrol Division were posted at three entrances to the school that remained open as students went to and from portable classrooms. Other deputies and school resource officers patrolled inside the school, said Sheriff?s spokeswoman Sgt. Christina Presberry.
All other entrances were locked, though Morrison said there was no extra screening of students as they came into the building.
Morrison said teachers and administrators had met before classes began to be briefed on the situation.
“We asked them to be extra diligent and aware of anything out of the ordinary,” he said.
One resource officers has been assigned to investigate the threat, and no suspects were found Friday morning, Presberry said. The threat was not against any particular student.
A second automated phone call went out at 10 a.m. today to assure parents that the school opened smoothly and that weekend activities, including state playoffs, a track meet and prom, would continue as scheduled.
