THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008

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Threat Sends Extra Police To Elk Grove HS

By TOM ROBB

Journal Reporter

Elk Grove High School held classes Thursday amid heavy police presence after a threatening message was found on a bathroom wall at the end of the school day Wednesday.

School officials released a joint written statement with police Thursday afternoon. Principal Nancy Holman said the threat

was not felt to be credible.

The school instituted extra security measures with Elk Grove Village Police that included a search by bomb sniffing dogs Wednesday night, a search by police and school staff Thursday morning and closing all but two entrances to the school during the day.

Elk Grove Police beefed up presence at the school Thursday that will continue into Friday.

High School Dist. 214 spokeswoman Venetia Miles said the school used an automated system to call parents beginning at 5 a.m. to notify them of the threat.

Miles confirmed that some calls took between three and four hours to reach all parents.

She said 330 students did not attend school Thursday and 30 called parents and left early when they learned of the threat.

"I'm leaving, these kinds of things really freak me out," Elk Grove sophomore Nikki LaRocco told a Journal reporter as she waited for her parents to pick her up outside the school. "I think they're making a bigger deal out of it than it really is. It's scaring me so I'm out of here."

LaRocco said administrators should have canceled school for the day. She said she heard the threat was on the bathroom stall for a month. School and police officials were not talking and LaRocco's claims could not be verified.

LaRocco said many students were leaving school early and that attendance in her first period class was lighter than normal.

Village officials including Mayor Craig Johnson, Police Chief Stephen Schmidt and other top police and village officials met with school administrators this morning.