Dear Stout Community,
I’m sure we all played that old game where someone starts a story, everyone adds a bit to the story, and then the final version is very different from the original story. Kids still play that game today but now social media is the platform and rather than just a few people being involved we now have an entire community helping to build upon the story. This is what appears to have happened last night and into this morning with a story regarding a potential threat to Stout school.
Yesterday, an Edsel Ford student thought their comments on social media would be a funny joke but, joking comments can be perceived as a potential threat and must be treated as such. As a result of the actions of the Edsel Ford student, local media ran news stories reporting the incident. The news stories included information about “heightened security at a Dearborn School”. It appears that some of our students saw these stores and began sharing the news with other students.
Just like the old game I mentioned above, the stories being shared on social media took on a life of their own and became a whole new story that somehow implied there was a threat to Stout. This is not the case! Our staff, along with our School Resource Officer, investigated these social media posts and have determined there is not a threat to our school. The posts that were shared were simply reposting old information from the incident at Edsel Ford.
Of course, as I mentioned, we must investigate any type of message that is brought to our attention and until we gather all of the facts we will take action to ensure the safety of all students and staff. For this reason, I did ask all teachers to keep students in the classroom for a brief period during the school day while we were investigating the source of these comments. Once we were sure that all was safe we returned to normal operations.
Working together, our efforts will ensure that Stout Middle School remains a great place for every child to attend and learn.
Sincerely,
Greg Oke
Principal
Stout Middle School