Violence ‘threat’ closes Whitehall schools

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Whitehall Central School District

School districts across the nation were put on high alert on Dec. 17 because of a viral trend on a social media platform promoting school violence.

Averill Park, Galway and Whitehall Central School Districts are just a few locations in the Capital Region that either completely closed operation for the day or transitioned to virtual learning because of school violence threats made directly toward those districts via “TikTok.”

“According to Sheriff Jeffrey J. Murphy, on Thursday Dec. 16, 2021 the Washington County Sheriff’s Office was made aware of videos and posts that were made on several social media platforms that indicated a possible threat to the Whitehall School District.

“At this time the investigation indicates that the potential threat is not creditable. The Sheriff’s Office Investigation is continuing but at this time the videos that circulated by the ‘TikTok’ platform are not believed to have been created locally and that it was not created as a threat to any specific location,” the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Dec. 16.

“The Sheriff’s Office and Whitehall School District are working together to assure Whitehall and all school districts in Washington County are safe. We ask that anyone with further information please contact the Sheriff’s Office Investigations Unit and always contact 911 in an emergent situation.”

Whitehall school superintendent Patrick Dee published a statement on Dec. 16 regarding potentially “threatening” behavior observed by a student in a classroom.

“We referred this information to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and upon investigation, it was determined that no threat was made. Following the email that I had shared with the community, a post was made to social media by a community member claiming that the content had come from the student in question. The Washington County Sheriff’s office was immediately contacted by the school and it was determined that the post was from October of 2020 and was NOT from the student in question,” Dee said.

“Given the incident about the comment made yesterday, coupled with the information being posted on ‘TikTok’, a decision has been made for all grade levels to transition to fully remote learning for tomorrow, Friday, Dec. 17, 2021.

“Please realize, no new information has been learned since this morning (Dec. 16) to contribute to this decision. It is the culmination of the apprehension for parents and guardians to send their child{ren) to school tomorrow due to the combination of events.”

In Granville, school was held as normal and superintendent Tom McGurl delivered a passionate statement on Dec. 16 encouraging parents and guardians to speak with their children about the uncomfortable topic.

“Please speak with your children about the importance of sharing any information that they might have about threats to students, staff or schools; any concerning behaviors being displayed by their friends and classmates; or about anything that ‘just doesn’t seem right’ about what they are seeing in their school,” McGurl said.