Stop being stupid. That’s the advice I’d give to the student or students who scrawled two bomb threats in graffiti in bathrooms at South Brunswick High School recently. I know it was a prank, but it is not funny.
Here’s the editorial we wrote last year ($) when the same kind of nonsense occurred:
Enough is enough.
Five times in just over a month South Brunswick High School has had to be evacuated because of a prank, bomb threats either called into the school or left in a note or scrawled on walls in the building.
The threats — three of which occurred in early May and two last week — were obvious pranks, according to school officials, who nonetheless decided not to take any chances. The building was evacuated with about three hours of class time lost.
We think the district has acted appropriately — it would be foolish not to take seriously any potential threat against the 2,800 or so students and staff members in the building.
The district also has made efforts to punish the pranksters while preventing future hoaxes from taking place.
Two students were arrested in early May in conjunction with one of the threats, charged with making terroristic threats, false public alarm, criminal mischief and conspiracy by local police and expelled by the district.
And school officials promise the same treatment for anyone else caught in connection with the other four threats. (An anonymous donor is offering a $500 reward to anyone with information that leads to the arrest of one of the pranksters.)
School Principal Tim Matheny also announced that additional bomb threats would result in the conversion of planned half days into full school days.
Unfortunately, threats are about the only tool administrators have at their disposal to deal with potential pranksters. It is really up to students to make sure that this foolishness stops.
Students need to understand that these hoaxes are not funny. They waste time and resources, create panic among the community and could, down the road, lead to a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” mentality, lulling students and staff into a false sense of security. The more false threats that are made, the more likely it becomes for students and staff to take them lightly — which could have dire consequences should a threat turn out to be real.
Students can make this stop by taking responsibility for their school and for the actions that their peers take. This means confronting students who find these sick jokes funny and making it clear to peers that they will not be afraid to turn in offending students.
The message has to be made clear: Bomb threats are not funny.
No. They’re not.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Hank Kalet 