Mom says bomb-threat expulsion too harsh

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INDIAN TOWNSHIP – A 15-year-old Woodland High School student won’t be in class today or for the rest of the academic year following a decision to expel her after she admitted to writing two bomb threats on a wall.

“I love school,” an emotional Sarah Dawn Stanley said Friday.

She was at home while her friends were in school preparing for the Christmas holiday.

And her mother, Dawn Fitch, wonders whether the local school board’s decision last week was so punitive that it will discourage other young people from stepping forward and taking responsibility for their actions.

Union 107 Superintendent Barry McLaughlin said Friday that there were 200 bomb threats in Maine last year, and he believes the school board acted appropriately.

Stanley’s problems began on Nov. 20. The girl, described by her mother as a “jokester,” said she “thought it would be funny to write a bomb threat on the bathroom wall at the high school and mark it with a date.”

School officials did not think it was funny.

They called police and evacuated the school, moving classes to alternative sites in accordance with a school system plan for responding to such threats.

The next day, the same message appeared again. “There is a bomb in the school,” the message said. It was dated Nov. 21.

School personnel conducted an investigation and confronted the person they believed was responsible. Although neither school officials nor the Baileyville Police Department would identify the student, police confirmed that a 15-year-old had been arrested and charged with two counts of terrorizing.

Stanley was immediately suspended from school, pending the hearing that was held last week.

Shortly after the incidents, Stanley went public by sending a letter to area media. In her letter, the sophomore admitted that she had made a mistake.

In a separate letter to the media last week, Stanley’s mother described what she said had occurred during an executive session Tuesday.

She said she and her daughter met with school board members, while friends and family waited in the hall. She said they went before the panel without legal representation because they wanted to address the board “with honesty and from the heart.”

“With tears in our eyes, side by side, [we proceeded] to plea our situation. I first asked the Woodland School Board to get to know Sarah and who she is before judging her. When I was emotionally unable to go on, Sarah took over. I was so proud and honored by her strength,” Fitch wrote. “Any doubts as to my parenting went away. Explaining to the best of her ability why she did what she did. Taking full responsibility and willing to do whatever she had to do to work and make things right.”

Fitch said her daughter explained why she went public. She said they hoped that by going public it would make a difference in another young person’s life.

The mother said Woodland High School Principal Craig King and the school’s assistant principal, Charles Noyes, recommended that Stanley be expelled until the next semester, and that she not be allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities when she returned to school. They also recommended that the school councilor and Stanley’s current councilor work together. “He made those recommendations due to the fact that Sarah has no prior record,” Fitch wrote.

The board listened to the appeal from Fitch and her daughter, then voted to return to public session. The panel voted to expel Stanley.

Fitch says she plans to appeal the decision.

Fitch said she agreed that bomb threats should be taken seriously, but she worries that the board is trying to make an example of her daughter. “School bomb threats are a statewide issue that must be dealt with in a way that strives to be just, while not throwing away a young person’s life,” the mother wrote.

She said she worries about the lesson she says is being taught to young people who step forward and take responsibility and then are punished severely.

She also questioned whether if her daughter had been captain of the basketball team, a prom queen or an honor student, the board would have dealt with her so severely.

On Friday, the sophomore said in an interview that she also did not understand the severity of the punishment.

Stanley said she would be willing to do any amount of community service, including talking publicly with other students about what she had done.

McLaughlin said he had not seen Fitch’s letter, but he defended the school board.

He confirmed that the expulsion hearing was held in executive session. When members returned to open session, he said, they expelled Stanley for the remainder of the school year. “Not until September, but for the remainder of this academic year, which ends in June,” he said.

McLaughlin said the vote was unanimous.

When Fitch asked the board to explain its decision, he said, the board deferred to him to explain.

The superintendent said he would not comment on the recommendations that might have been made by a principal in executive session.

He said the facts of the case were not in dispute, so the board focused on the law that governs such acts. He said the state statute is clear that a school board “shall” expel students for acts that violate the “peace and usefulness of the school.”

McLaughlin said bomb threats are disruptive and that some parents have refused to send their youngsters to school out of fear. “The cost in the loss of instructional time is well-documented,” he said.

As a result, McLaughlin said, schools and police departments across the state have taken a firm stand.

“It’s because they should, but also because parents and teachers and other students in the schools have said ‘Hey, these have to stop,'” he said.

Because the law directs a board to expel a student for such acts, he said, the question that remains is for how long. He said that across the state, schools have been expelling such students for the remainder of the school year. “By the way, ‘forever’ is an option that school boards have” too, he said.

“The board felt that their decision was appropriate,” the superintendent said.