Caroline Grogan, Reporter
@cgrograncourant
Abby Weiss, Senior Editor
@aweisscourant
Anyone who has taken public transportation has most likely noticed the multitude of signs that proclaim “If you see something, say something.” This slogan, created to urge passengers to report any suspicious activity, has more recently been adopted in the context of school safety.
After the Parkland shooting, Staples High School principal James D’Amico was one of many administrators across the nation who stressed this policy to his students. On February 27, less than two weeks after Parkland, a Staples student put this policy into action.
According to NBC Connecticut, a student overheard one of his peers making a threat “that he was going to shoot a teacher” and immediately reported the incident to the assistant principal. A lockdown and investigation into the student’s threat ensued. In an interview with Fox 61, the Westport police confirmed the student “did have thoughts of executing a mass shooting” and was charged with threatening in the second degree.
After such an incident occurred at a school less than twenty minutes away, in a town where New Canaanites venture to see friends and duke it out on the sports field, the Courant turned to NCHS students to find out what they would do in a similar situation.
A schoolwide poll was sent out that asked: “Last month, a student at Staples High School averted a potential school shooting when they reported a fellow student’s threat towards a teacher to the school administration. What would you do if you overheard a student making a violent threat?”
Out of 294 respondents distributed amongst four response choices, 64.3% would report a violent threat to an adult, 14.6% would talk about it with their friends, and 6.5% would dismiss it as ‘just talk’. 14.6% students would not know what to do.
Assistant principal, David Gusitsch reacted to the results of the poll, acknowledging the difficulty to capture responses to such a nuanced situation in survey format. “I can’t say I’m surprised at the students who would dismiss it as just talk. If you’re with your buds and you’re just talking about something and you hear one of your other friends say something, they probably shouldn’t have said it, but there’s no actionable threat,” he said.
Sydney Kend, an NCHS senior with close friends at Staples, recognized that the context of the threat would have an effect on whether she reported it. “Sometimes people tend to overreact and I wouldn’t want to tattle on them for having a bad day,” she said. “However, after hearing what happened at Staples, I’d be much more likely to say something to an administrator.”
Senior Lola Knadler, who has a friend from Staples that was texting her during the incident, stated that after seeing her friend so nervous she’s taking this topic more seriously. “Before, I would’ve thought that they weren’t being serious and that they were just joking,” she said. “But now it’s such a fragile topic that you can’t joke about it.”
Although a student’s decision to report a threat can be dependent on the context, Principal Bill Egan emphasized that there is no downside to anonymously reporting any potential threat. “There’s really no harm in telling an adult, even if you feel something is a joke and you just want to clarify it,” he said. “And to be quite honest, there’s no such thing as a joke when it comes to potential threats to the school.”
Mr. Gusitsch expressed a similar sentiment. “If there’s any inclination of concern you have to trust your heart and gut that, if it doesn’t feel right, then you should report it and let the adults figure it out. For the people who wouldn’t know what to do, just tell an adult and you’ve done your job and you’d never have to regret not taking action,” he said.
In fact, Mr. Gusitsch and fellow administrators have already responded to a student’s concern about a backpack left alone outside of a classroom. “They were concerned they didn’t know what was in it. We were happy they did that because we evaluated it,” he said.
“The whole idea is if you see something, say something. There are plenty of trusted adults in the building. Let them be the ones to make the tough decisions on if it was a credible threat or not.”
