Young, angry, & ready for change
Silence is violence! Use your voice!
Fix this B4 I text my mom from under a desk
We’re skipping our lessons to teach you one.
For three days, dozens of students at Erie Mason High School walked out of class in protest.
Outside the school, their homemade signs with poignant slogans painted a clear message: a demand for their voices be heard by an administration that they say too often ignores their cries for help. Students said that the school has not taken their safety seriously in the wake of threats that were investigated by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office this month.
“It’s built up so much over time of students not being heard on issues like this by the administration and they’re just frustrated now,” said Jay Hathaway, a parent of a student at the high school. “This doesn’t just come from nothing. It doesn’t manifest from nowhere. … It’s just frustrating that school doesn’t seem to want to answer them or give them any kind of solutions.”
Superintendent Kelli Tuller said the administration has heard their pleas for more transparency and accountability and that all threats are taken seriously.
“We are reflecting on the things we are hearing,” Tuller said. “We definitely want to continue to hear and be able to address the issues of our students and families. We want Mason Consolidated Schools every day to feel like a safe, welcoming environment where students walk in and they know they can be here without worry.”
According to Tuller, the situation stems from an incident on April 28 when a student made comments that were deemed threatening by another student. Those comments were reported through Michigan’s OK2SAY student safety program and promptly investigated by staff and the school resource officer (SRO) assigned to Mason, according to a statement from Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough.
After interviews with both students involved and other witnesses, the SRO and staff determined that there was no intent to harm and no threat to any students or the building.
The offending student was the subject of another OK2SAY report on May 9 and a second investigation into concerning comments made in class during a presentation by a special guest. Goodnough said the investigation determined the comments were not threatening in nature and not directed at the school or a specific student.
A third report May 11 alleged the offending student “had a hit list, threatened to assault teachers and students, and shoot up the school.” A third investigation determined that there was no evidence of the reported threats nor a hit list.
Tuller said the school followed its disciplinary procedures after the confirmed April 28 incident, but she could not go into details due to student privacy laws.
“The school followed our threat assessment process,” Tuller said. “We used the BTAM (Behavioral and Threat Assessment Management) tool, which many districts use across the state of Michigan. … We looked at that and we engaged our SRO to start talking to witnesses and our administration and worked with a full team of trained personnel, social workers and teachers to find out the level of concern.
“It was deemed not credible, but we still worked on inappropriate comments with that student.”
Tuller sent out a letter to families on May 12 after rising social media chatter about the reported incidents. The letter detailed the school’s general response to threats and attempted to reassure families that all threats both past and present were being investigated.
“It was pretty vague,” Hathaway said. “It didn’t give any details about what, if any, kind of safety incident there was. It was basically a blanket statement. … That just got parents talking and the rumor mill got going more and more.
“I understand that they can’t give specific details and student names. There are policies about what you can share about discipline procedures… but the district typically gives whatever details they can, they say what’s been investigated, and what the outcome is. And they did none of that at all and maybe that would’ve been a better approach and could have avoided the mess with the rumor mill.”
Tuller admits that the flood of rumors muddied the situation over the past few weeks. Still, the staff took every report seriously, she said.
“We always make sure that we don’t automatically assume something is a rumor,” she said. “Every one of those situations are assessed with great detail and a thoroughness to make sure we do protect our kids and our staff. We don’t want to take anything as just a rumor, we want to take them as accurate, valid concerns.”
Disappointed with the administration’s letter and overall response, students organized a protest last week. A walkout occurred at 7:35 a.m. Monday morning and continued for the next two days. Some students said that they were discouraged from protesting by staff and were later forced to take their demonstration to a property just off campus.
“The administration wants to sweep it under the rug,” said Michelle Davis, the mother of two students at the high school. “My daughter is terrified to go to school now. … The students are tired of being treated like they are disposable nobodies.”
Tuller said the students were always welcome to protest. On Monday, she met with the student protesters outside the high school and answered questions.
“I wanted to give the students the opportunity to share their comments directly with us,” Tuller said. “Some things we couldn’t answer because of student privacy, however we definitely took all of the things they said into consideration.”
A previously planned special school board meeting had to be canceled last week due to a lack of a quorum but will be rescheduled in the next couple of weeks. The next regular meeting is June 7.
“We definitely expect to hear more concerns from parents there and we want to be able to share more with them and make them feel more confident about the process that the school district uses,” Tuller said.
On Friday, Mason School District released a statement from the sheriff’s office with more details about the investigations. Tuller also sent out a recorded message out to families to better clarify the alleged incidents and the administration’s response.
Hathaway said that it was a step in a better direction, but there was still room for improvement.
“I think it is a better response because it directly named and addressed their response to an issue,” he said. “I think if they would have released this earlier, it would have helped. However, I think they have yet to address the students’ more wide-ranging complaint about feeling voiceless when many of them have had firsthand, negative experiences with this student.”
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