It’s a pretty good bet that nothing is going to happen at Crystal Lake Community High School today with District 155 and the Crystal Lake Police on alert.
In fact, when I first heard about the threat, I figured that it might just be a kid wanting to get off school on a relatively warm Friday.
Employees try to bend sick day rules to get 3-day weekends. Why not teens?
Here’s what John Lutsch, Assistant Superintendent for Business & Finance, told me:
There was graffiti found in a washroom in Central High School that was threatening in nature and made mention of Columbine and Virginia Tech.
That’s been taken seriously by the administration and we’ve enlisted the police in the ongoing investigation.
We believe it is a prank but we are taking it quite seriously.
The police are over there today. We usually have one in the building. There are additional officers in the building. We also have addition security personnel in the building and the staff is in a state of heightened awareness.
We’re advising parents they certainly have the option to keep them at home and a number of them have chosen to do that today.
Lutsch could not give me a comparison of attendance today versus yesterday, but did tell me that the student parking lot is usually full. It is not full today.
This is posted on the District 155 web site:
On Thursday, April 19, graffiti referencing recent events and events tied to the April 20 date was found in a Crystal Lake Central High School washroom.
School officials are cooperating with local law official to investigate the incident. Community High School District 155 takes any such situation seriously.
In addition to the investigation of the graffiti, as a precautionary measure police have stepped-up awareness and patrols of the CLC campus for the day. School remains open as normal.
It is a regular day of school attendance. School officials will continually monitor the situation and provide additional information if warranted.
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The photo is of boys headed past the field house entrance for the playing fields during first period gym class on April 20, 2007.