CUHSD parent safety meetings discuss recent shooting threats
EL CENTRO — In light of the recent gun scares at its schools, Central Union High School District on Tuesday held parent safety meetings to discuss its safety procedures with the public.
Although threats of a shooting made on social media against Southwest High School and later Central Union High School on were found to be not credible, school officials closed each campus midway through the school day Monday.
CUHSD Superintendent Ward Andrus on Tuesday said no injuries were reported, nor were any students or staff hurt during the evacuations Monday.
In response to the events, SHS held its own parent safety meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, while CUHS hosted two on Tuesday — one at 9:30 a.m. and another at 3:30 p.m. — at its multipurpose room on campus.
Andrus told parents and guardians in attendance at the 3:30 p.m. meeting that the district should’ve acted faster in communicating with parents and putting the schools on lockdown.
Although the district was aware of the incident at 6:38 a.m. Monday, parents didn’t receive an automated text or phone call until hours later.
“We accept responsibility that we did not communicate fast enough to parents on our official web pages, that students were safe and we were investigating,” he said.
The superintendent said he would’ve like to have gotten a notice out on the district’s website and social media outlets in a more timely manner.
“We didn’t communicate fast enough,” Andrus said. “We didn’t put the schools into lockdown, freeze mode to get our hands wrapped around this. We were trying to solve it a different way and that didn’t work.”
However, Andrus said that, if the same situation were to hypothetically happen again, the district would stick with its decision to keep its campuses open.
“The decision would’ve still been the right decision to hold school, because the students always were safe,” he said.
The superintendent explained that since first encountering the social media post, neither he nor El Centro Police Chief
Brian Johnson found the post to be credible.
“We chose not to provide a statement the moment we began investigating,” Andrus said.
The post was originally made on Snapchat, was screenshot by someone, shared and became widespread.
The post stated, “attention every southwest kid!! group of kids are planning to shoot the school Monday 9th during 1st or 2nd lunch.”
Later in the day Monday, an additional social media posting spread to CUHS, which caused an uproar between parents and students and led to the dismissal of students.
A similar post was discovered Monday night toward Wilson Junior High School in El Centro, as well as at Brawley Union High School in Brawley.
WJHS and BUHS both remained opened Tuesday after each of their school districts conducted an investigation
Both SHS and CUHS were in regular session on Tuesday.
SHS announced that, as of today, backpacks would not be permitted on campus as the investigation continues to identify the person posting online threats.
“The main gate at the front of the school is the only gate that will be open,” a statement from SHS stated. “All other gates will remain locked throughout the day. We have hired additional private security for the remainder of the week.”
About two weeks ago, the district came across at picture of an SHS student pointing a BB gun at a mirror.
“That student was arrested, and we’re going through a disciplinary process with that student,” Andrus said. “He’s not at that school.”
The second incident occurred on Friday when a teacher at SHS found a .38 mm round of ammunition on campus.
A search was conducted in the school’s locker room, and two additional rounds of ammunition were found in an unlocked, unassigned locker.
A parent during Tuesday’s meeting asked if these two incidents had any connection to Monday’s social media incident.
Andrus assured that ECPD has found no relation between the three incidents.
“They’ve seen no actual connection between students,” he said. “Just location of — they all go to the same school.”
The district had a set plan for weeks now to host a normal lockdown drill on Thursday at its school. That lockdown will still be taking place, Andrus said.