Bala Cynwyd Middle School parents concerned over school threat texts
LOWER MERION TOWNSHIP, Pa. (CBS) -- Disturbing texts were discovered between local middle schoolers in Lower Merion Township.
At least two parents told CBS News Philadelphia students talked about a school shooting and students who they hoped would be shot.
Parents were already upset about the messages that are described as threatening. But it was worse for parents when they learned the students involved were allowed to return to school
It was late last month when texts between a handful of Bala Cynwyd middle schoolers surfaced. The messages are alarming and "threatening," according to the school district.
Law enforcement and the district said in a statement: "The determination was made that the texts in question did not indicate an actual threat to our school students or staff."
But parents are upset.
A father of a student whose name he says appeared on that "list" shared the texts with CBS Philadelphia. He asked that we not reveal his identity to protect his children.
"I don't understand how text messages that reference romanticizing school shootings, celebrating a high number of casualties in those shootings, and then rattling off a list of individual students whom they hope will be shot, doesn't constitute a credible threat," the father said. "Because if that's not then what it is?"
For the first time ahead of a school board meeting Monday night, the district acknowledged in a letter to the community that emotions surrounding the text messages discovered last month were difficult and scary.
School officials explained legal issues and student privacy concerns limited what they could say.
Some parents are having a difficult time accepting that given the gravity of those text messages.
"We're really disturbed by the way that the district has approached this so far and the way that the school board is addressing very legitimate concerns," a parent said,
An attorney who represents the parents of a student on the list, spoke out at Monday night's school board meeting — questioning the district's decision to allow the students who wrote those texts back into the classroom.
"Ask yourself whether you would allow your child to be subjected to that type of emotional trauma? It is unfair and absurd that our child is the one being punished by having to continue to go to school with the kids who threatened him," Andrew Erdlen, the attorney representing the parents of the student, said.
A painful element to this – parents say the texts were discovered the same day as the Nashville school shooting on March 27 where six people were killed.
Lower Merion's acting superintendent said given the current climate of our country and multiple incidents that have already transpired this year, it is not lost on him how challenging these situations are.