An Unexpected Call (The Backlog!)

Shane's principal called. He told Carrie that Shane had been involved in an incident and he couldn't talk about it on the phone. She had to come to the school to learn more.

Want to set off someone's anxiety? Tell them there's big trouble and then refuse to give any details.

Carrie called me on her way in. To say she was worked up is an understatement. 

The next update I got was a text: "He made a threat about hurting other students...still getting the full story..."

The full story was that Shane said something in the final block the day before. There had been a group of boys taunting him that had picked on him in elementary school. He said they poked at him for "not being a real Christian" and all sorts of things. When Shane had enough, he yelled at them something like "There was going to be a homicide and he'd go kamikaze!" Naturally, one of the boys then ran to tell the teacher and all three verified that Shane was saying inappropriate things.

A little context: 

There was a false 911 call made about Charlottesville High School the day before. The school went on lockdown and armed police stormed the building and did a hallway by hallway search. It was not the first false threat made in our area this school year, either. The Uvalde school shooting was in May and no police department wants a repeat.

Carrie arrived right before the school went into their scheduled lockdown drill. She sat in a locked room in the office while everyone ran around and did their thing.

Bottom line: Shane's not even sure what homicide meant, but it was a bad bad time to use that word in a school. 

When Shane came into the office, he cried as he told his side of the story. Carrie asked if anyone had looked into his file, because she recognized names and stated that their had been issues at Scottsville. They were welcome to call the counselor there to confirm.

Shane was sent home for the day, but it wasn't a suspension. The AP looked into the matter and it was decided to change Shane's schedule. He got moved out of the 4th block with the boys. It worked out great, because Shane got moved into Dylan's PE class (huzzah!) and his exploratory course was switched to art. Shane felt behind for a while, but he ended up really enjoying his art class! He hadn't originally been signed up to take it, but was glad he did.

It wasn't the best handled situation, but the results were positive.  Maybe Shane even learned a lesson about the value of thinking before speaking! So all's well that ended well. God's in control and even bumps in the road are accounted for in His plan.