READFIELD — A teenage suspect who reportedly sent a text message threatening violence at Maranacook Community High School has been identified and classes are expected to resume Tuesday at the high school and middle school.
School officials canceled classes Monday at the two schools, which share a campus in Readfield, after an anonymous text message Saturday evening threatened violence at the high school on Halloween.
School officials posted an urgent notice Sunday on the Maranacook Area Schools/Regional School Unit 38 website announcing the two schools would be closed Monday as a precaution.
Superintendent Jay Charette said Monday afternoon that police had identified a suspect and school administrators would seek to “hold this person accountable for their actions that disrupted our schools and communities.”
“As a result of this work I am confident in the safety and security of our high and middle schools to reopen the Maranacook Schools/Campus immediately,” Charette said Monday in a notice to the school community.
Thus, a Haunted Walk that was canceled Sunday night due to the threat was rescheduled for 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Monday — Halloween night — at the high school. The walk was sponsored by the school’s Parent-Teacher Organization.
Lt. Chris Read of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release late Monday night that police first received a complaint of terrorizing from a 14-year-old girl in Manchester who said a text message sent her stated, “I’m shooting up the school on Monday.” Police said a concerned parent was able to provide more information about who may be responsible. A police detective issued a summons on a charge of terrorizing on Monday to a 15-year-old girl from Readfield in connection with the threat.
“The assistant principal was notified of the results of the investigation that we did not believe there to be any more danger to anyone at either of the schools,” Read said in the release.
Charette said as the schools reopen Tuesday, students will see a law enforcement presence on campus at various times.
The superintendent declined to say if the suspect who allegedly made the threats is a student.
“We want everyone to see that we took this seriously, acted swiftly and in partnership with law enforcement,” Charette said of Tuesday’s planned police presence at the schools. “The message is, ‘We are open for business, and we are all here because school safety is essential to our mission.'”
In the notice sent to the school community, Charette thanked students for showing “tremendous bravery by reporting to adults and school officials what they experienced.”
Charette said Monday students played a key role in recognizing the threats to students and the school, and spoke to their parents about it, who then contacted school officials.
He said students reporting the threats, instead of trying to deal with them themselves, allowing officials to respond quickly.
“The character and presence of mind to get adults involved helped to prevent escalation and speaks to the fact that students don’t want these situations impacting their education,” Charette said. “They want safe and healthy school environments, which empowers them to ‘see something and say something.'”
Charette said some students’ families did not receive notification of the threat and school closures through the schools’ alert system. He said school officials were notified Monday morning by the alert system’s provider that a “high number” of notifications were not successful due to an outage of their servers.
Charette apologized and said school officials will confirm the system is working correctly, and will use multiple notification methods in the future.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new information issued late Monday night by police.
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