Officials address Ashland school threat

ASHLAND – Ashland City Schools officials on Monday night addressed the social media threat that left classrooms nearly empty Friday, triggering questions from parents and community members about the district’s reaction.

Police became aware of the potential threat around 11 a.m. Thursday and first made the threat public through a press release around 5:45 p.m.

The school district issued a recorded statement via the district’s phone notification system around 9:30 p.m. acknowledging the threat, stating that schools would be open Friday and informing families that absences Friday would not count against students’ records. 

Only about 21 percent of Ashland High School students came to school Friday, and attendance in other district buildings also was low, according to Ashland Police School Resource Officer Jeremy Jarvis.

As of Monday, police had not charged anyone and did not have a suspect in custody, but Jarvis said the department does have a person of interest in the case.

“It’s hard for the public to understand that we may know information that cannot be shared,” said board of education vice president Jim Wolfe. 

He wanted to assure families that superintendent Doug Marrah did not take the decision lightly of closing school.

“The decision about having school was a well thought-out decision,” he said. “It was in the best interest of children of our community that the children be in the buildings, that that was the safest place for kids. The buildings would be watched and protected.” 

Wolfe said there was a high level of cooperation between the Ashland City School District and the city’s police department, both in deliberating how to handle the situation and in determining what information to release to the public and when to release it.

“It’s important for the public to know we are on top of these things, and sometimes the lack of communication should not be interpreted as a lack of knowing what to do or knowing what’s going on,” Wolfe said. “Rather, we did delay later into the evening thinking that we could bring some more closure to the situation than we ultimately did. At some point it just became obvious that we needed to make a statement.”

Marrah praised the police department and district staff for their handling of the situation last week. 

“Obviously with our incident Friday we had a lot of things that happened, but most importantly, the police department was great, our teachers were great, our families were great, or kids were great,” Marrah said. 

Marrah also defended his decision to have classes Friday.

“Most importantly, I think kids had an opportunity to be around others and talk, and I think that’s beneficial, regardless of where our world is today. It’s not where any of us would like to be. Our kids are forced to grow up too fast. I know a lot of teachers spent time with kids just talking through what was going on.”

Wolfe said the incident was a reminder that the district needs to move expeditiously with its security plans. 

The district has been implementing continuous changes to its security plans in recent months and years. The board has met in executive session to discuss confidential security considerations during almost every school board meeting this year.