By:John Borrelli
Second incident in district this month
A student at East Rockaway Junior-Senior High School was suspended last week after allegedly telling another student that he planned to destroy the school.
"Tomorrow's Hitler's birthday and I'm going to blow up the school," a student is alleged to have told a classmate on April 19, according to Fourth Precinct Police.
The student was not charged in the incident. However, his parents were informed and he was suspended from school, according to police.
The threat is the second the district has received in the past few weeks, according to East Rockaway's Superintendent of Schools Jim Powers. He addressed a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night, saying that another threat was received at Rhame Avenue. Elementary School recently. In this instance as well, a student revealed a peer's threat of violence to school administrators, the student was suspended and the police were informed of the incident. Most parents at the meeting had heard about the threats, but were calm as Powers spoke. One parent said she overheard her son telling his friend about it on the phone.
"Occasionally kids say things they shouldn't say. In this day and age, we have to take it very seriously," Powers said. "In just about every other school around here something like this has happened."
School officials refused to release details of the student's suspension. "We do not discuss individual students with other students or with other parents," Powers said.
Students were not informed of the incident, he said, because "word of mouth takes care of that. Students spread this information very quickly."
Two tenth-grade students standing outside of the school on Tuesday said that the student had not returned to school yet. They knew nothing of the incident that led to the student's suspension.
The suspended student could not be reached for comment.
Junior-Senior High School Principal William Fortgang said, "We're taking all the necessary steps. We've contacted his parents and the police were informed."
Powers said that events such as the Columbine shootings, which took place on Adolph Hitler's birthday, April 20, necessitate that "we take anything like this very seriously. Parents' reactions are heightened, and understandably so," he said. "And so are ours."
The superintendent recalled that when he was a high school student, "things were said that shouldn't have been said, as they are today. But back then they might have been laughed off. Nowadays they must be taken seriously."
