SCASD updates community after safety concern

In a press release issued early Sunday afternoon, the State College Area School District asserted its confidence that there is no existing threat to its students or employees.

Those reassurances come on the heels of an Instagram post that was made by an account called scasdshooter and contained images of the Columbine shooters and a caption that read, “inspiration for the event happening on Monday.”

In a letter addressed to the SCASD community, superintendent Bob O’Donnell said additional security measures will be implemented as a precautionary measure starting Monday morning. There will be an increased visibility of police officers throughout all schools in addition to routine patrols and the school resource officers that are permanently assigned to secondary schools containing grades six-12.

“Please know that my wife and I have three children who attend SCASD schools, and I would not permit us to open schools if the police or our administrative team believed that safety was a concern,” O’Donnell said.

State College police were made aware of the Instagram post on Friday night and notified the school district. A 14-year-old State College middle school student allegedly called and told police that he was the poster and was only joking.

In his letter, O’Donnell said that police met with the student and parents, obtained the device that was used to make the post and verified that the student has no known access to weapons.

“Please know that when students make potentially threatening comments and/or significantly disrupt our schools, we keep the responsible students from attending school until the police, district and student assistance services are completely comfortable with the safety of all students, including the responsible individuals,” O’Donnell said.

He encouraged parents to continue to monitor their children’s social media accounts.

“Furthermore, we request that anyone who is aware of suspicious or concerning posts to report these directly to the police and your child’s principal,” O’Donnell said.

This story was originally published September 18, 2016 at 3:27 PM with the headline "SCASD updates community after safety concern."