North Mason closes schools after threats related to planned walkout
Three schools in North Mason School District were closed Tuesday after multiple threats were issued related to a walkout planned to be held on the district campus on Tuesday afternoon.
The district's upper campus, which includes North Mason High School, James. A Taylor High School and Hawkins Middle School, closed under the advice of the Mason County Sheriff's Office. The North Mason School District announced the closure Monday evening after receiving multiple threats.
On Tuesday evening, the school district announced the closed schools would resume normal operations on Wednesday.
We are thankful that the sheriff’s investigation determined there was not a credible threat," North Mason Superintendent Dana Rosenbach said.
Around 11 a.m. on Monday, the Mason County Sheriff's Office received a call from the school district concerning the threat of a possible shooting at James A. Taylor High School. The sheriff's office began investigating and discovered the threat involved a student repeating what he saw on social media, according to Mason County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Ryan Spurling.
The original call was based on rumor, Spurling said.
"When we started digging into it, there were other things that were threatened on social media, and we're still trying to chase it down," Spurling said.
The sheriff's office wasn't able to complete its investigation on Monday, so the office recommended to NMSD that it close its three upper campus schools, Spurling said.
"There was enough credibility to the threats that we needed to follow up, but not enough time to follow up before school started today, so that's why we made the recommendation," Spurling said.
Rosenbach, who told the Kitsap Sun that the walkout involved concerns about school bullying, said she would be meeting with the sheriff's office Tuesday to discuss if the closed schools would be reopening Wednesday.
Tina Shelden, who has two children in North Mason School District, organized the walkout to bring school and community awareness to what she says is a rising level of bullying and student mistreatment within the district. She pointed out the situation in December when the school district alerted families about two students at Hawkins Middle School who verbalized plans to bring weapons to school.
"I've been talking to a lot of parents about it. We want to see a change," Shelden said. "Get the drugs, violence, and gangs out of our schools."
Revealing that her oldest son experienced bullying at Hawkins Middle School two years ago, Shelden called on North Mason School District officials to work toward creating a more safe environment for students.
"They need to stay taking things more seriously," Shelden said.
Kitsap Sun reporter Jeff Graham contributed to this story.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to kitsapsun.com today.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: North Mason closes schools after threats related to planned walkout
