Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not about discipline. The child was in mental health crisis.

He should have been sent to a hospital as would have happened if it was a life threatening physical illness.

You don’t leave the welfare of a kid who is talking the way he was in the hands of the questionable adults who raised him to be that way!

Schools can’t override parents when it comes to institutionalization and seeking treatment for a student. The school is a government agency, but it doesn’t have the force of policing or forcing health care decisions onto families.

What don’t people get about that? And do you really want school administrators to have that kind of power over your families? Schools really can’t act when there’s uncooperative parents and no signs of physical/sexual abuse.

I don't think of it as control "over my family."

I think of it as responsible adults stepping in to protect a child with very limited power.

Parents do not own their children.

This is from the PA dept of education's Model Suicide Prevention Policy:

<<Procedures for Parental Involvement

Parents or guardians of a student identified as being at risk of suicide must be immediately notified by the school and must be involved in consequent actions and provided with crisis and community resources. If any mandated reporter suspects that a student’s risk status is the result of abuse or neglect, that individual must comply with the reporting requirements of the Child Protective Services Law.

If the parents or guardians refuse to cooperate and there is any doubt regarding the child’s safety, the school personnel who directly witnessed the expressed suicide thought or intention will pursue a 302 involuntary behavioral health assessment by calling County Emergency Services at [provide number] and ask for a delegate. >>

The bar for actually sending someone to a hospital after county emergency service assessment is so high. My husband threatened suicide, had the means to do so and was missing for a time. When I called the police, they did the right thing and brought in the county mental health group. They asked him a few questions, spoke to him for less than 5 minutes and left. He was not in imminent danger according to them. I don’t know how much more proof someone is suicidal than a text outlining that he is going to do it.
If you haven’t been through this scenario, please don’t assume that the county or any mental health group is going to swoop in and save the day. They just don’t.

+1

So many people dn't understand in how many ways the school's hands are tied, especially with parents like these.

Numerous legal experts on student rights have come out and stated this school absolutely had the right, given the known information, to search this student’s bag and locker. They also had the right to keep the student detained, even if the parents wouldn’t take him home. And the Sheriff said they literally arrested a kid a couple days later just for threatening to copycat and they wished that school had called them in as soon as they called the parents. The school is so screwed here. And they should be.

Maybe. But the parents should be "more screwed" (sic). The parents f=dropped the parenting ball in each and every way possible. Besides that, they are cowards who ran like scared monkeys.

BOTH the parents AND the school need to be screwed.

And I'm disgusted that the parents were given bail at all after the stunt they pulled. The gun nuts of the world can pull together $100K online in days for the poor, martyred patriots.

Anonymous wrote:Is the school back open for normal classes yet?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we know more about all the details, maybe we can assign the proper order to the blame. In the meantime, why is wrong pointing out that many failures led to the tragedy?! There are so many failures and so many places to assign blame:

*the fifteen-year-old himself
*the parents and the last fifteen years of parenting, but especially the last few weeks
*terrifyingly and absurdly lax gun laws
*the school's decision making

If there are mental health issues or bullying, we can add them to the list. We *should* add them to the list. We are all wondering but just don't know about that yet.

This isn't excuse making, this is trying to understand an almost incomprehensible reality to even have a chance to prevent another one in the future. It is very likely that if even ONE factor had been radically different the tragedy would have been prevented! It definitely would not have happened that day.

Again, these are not excuses and no one, as far as I know, wants to let the kids or the parents off the hook. But there are multiple factors that contributed and led up to the events and we should want to understand all of them.

Well said.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I hope those parents get sued nine ways to Sunday.

Are you kidding? Those people are poor, what good would this do?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read the thread, but wanted to share some thoughts.

I really think these parents will get off. Initially my thoughts were outrage and how could they enable this behavior by purchasing a gun for him, etc.

However, if you look at the facts as presented, the fault of the tragedy in the school lies with school administrators.

Although the school alerted the parents of the drawings Ethan made that day, the parents are not mental health experts. They are not qualified to determine whether he is a threat, and in fact as parents, their opinion should not even be considered.

The school really should have made the determination as to whether Ethan should return to the classroom. Despite the fact they tried to send him home with the parents (who refused), they should have called in law enforcement at that point (or at the very least the SRO). It is the job of the school to protect the student body and staff.

The parents really did nothing wrong short of poor judgment. There are lots of crappy parents out there, but luckily most don't end up with a kid becoming a school shooter.

Seriously? You are excusing these parents? The ones who laughed with their son who used his phone in school to order ammo and told him not to get caught? The ones who bought him the gun and then did nothing to make sure he didn’t have it? The ones who refused to take him home? Then tried to skip town when charges were announced against them? This is not poor judgment, it is absolutely criminal!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read the thread, but wanted to share some thoughts.

I really think these parents will get off. Initially my thoughts were outrage and how could they enable this behavior by purchasing a gun for him, etc.

However, if you look at the facts as presented, the fault of the tragedy in the school lies with school administrators.

Although the school alerted the parents of the drawings Ethan made that day, the parents are not mental health experts. They are not qualified to determine whether he is a threat, and in fact as parents, their opinion should not even be considered.

The school really should have made the determination as to whether Ethan should return to the classroom. Despite the fact they tried to send him home with the parents (who refused), they should have called in law enforcement at that point (or at the very least the SRO). It is the job of the school to protect the student body and staff.

The parents really did nothing wrong short of poor judgment. There are lots of crappy parents out there, but luckily most don't end up with a kid becoming a school shooter.

Seriously? You are excusing these parents? The ones who laughed with their son who used his phone in school to order ammo and told him not to get caught? The ones who bought him the gun and then did nothing to make sure he didn’t have it? The ones who refused to take him home? Then tried to skip town when charges were announced against them? This is not poor judgment, it is absolutely criminal!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read the thread, but wanted to share some thoughts.

I really think these parents will get off. Initially my thoughts were outrage and how could they enable this behavior by purchasing a gun for him, etc.

However, if you look at the facts as presented, the fault of the tragedy in the school lies with school administrators.

Although the school alerted the parents of the drawings Ethan made that day, the parents are not mental health experts. They are not qualified to determine whether he is a threat, and in fact as parents, their opinion should not even be considered.

The school really should have made the determination as to whether Ethan should return to the classroom. Despite the fact they tried to send him home with the parents (who refused), they should have called in law enforcement at that point (or at the very least the SRO). It is the job of the school to protect the student body and staff.

The parents really did nothing wrong short of poor judgment. There are lots of crappy parents out there, but luckily most don't end up with a kid becoming a school shooter.

LOL. I see the gun lobby has its interns working overtime on this one trying to sway public opinion. First, the appeal to reason (At first I thought this totally obvious thing), followed by the "facts as presented" followed by a bunch of excuses and dropped facts.

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read the thread, but wanted to share some thoughts.

I really think these parents will get off. Initially my thoughts were outrage and how could they enable this behavior by purchasing a gun for him, etc.

However, if you look at the facts as presented, the fault of the tragedy in the school lies with school administrators.

Although the school alerted the parents of the drawings Ethan made that day, the parents are not mental health experts. They are not qualified to determine whether he is a threat, and in fact as parents, their opinion should not even be considered.

The school really should have made the determination as to whether Ethan should return to the classroom. Despite the fact they tried to send him home with the parents (who refused), they should have called in law enforcement at that point (or at the very least the SRO). It is the job of the school to protect the student body and staff.

The parents really did nothing wrong short of poor judgment. There are lots of crappy parents out there, but luckily most don't end up with a kid becoming a school shooter.

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read the thread, but wanted to share some thoughts.

I really think these parents will get off. Initially my thoughts were outrage and how could they enable this behavior by purchasing a gun for him, etc.

However, if you look at the facts as presented, the fault of the tragedy in the school lies with school administrators.

Although the school alerted the parents of the drawings Ethan made that day, the parents are not mental health experts. They are not qualified to determine whether he is a threat, and in fact as parents, their opinion should not even be considered.

The school really should have made the determination as to whether Ethan should return to the classroom. Despite the fact they tried to send him home with the parents (who refused), they should have called in law enforcement at that point (or at the very least the SRO). It is the job of the school to protect the student body and staff.

The parents really did nothing wrong short of poor judgment. There are lots of crappy parents out there, but luckily most don't end up with a kid becoming a school shooter.

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read the thread, but wanted to share some thoughts.

I really think these parents will get off. Initially my thoughts were outrage and how could they enable this behavior by purchasing a gun for him, etc.

However, if you look at the facts as presented, the fault of the tragedy in the school lies with school administrators.

Although the school alerted the parents of the drawings Ethan made that day, the parents are not mental health experts. They are not qualified to determine whether he is a threat, and in fact as parents, their opinion should not even be considered.

The school really should have made the determination as to whether Ethan should return to the classroom. Despite the fact they tried to send him home with the parents (who refused), they should have called in law enforcement at that point (or at the very least the SRO). It is the job of the school to protect the student body and staff.

The parents really did nothing wrong short of poor judgment. There are lots of crappy parents out there, but luckily most don't end up with a kid becoming a school shooter.

Anonymous wrote:When we know more about all the details, maybe we can assign the proper order to the blame. In the meantime, why is wrong pointing out that many failures led to the tragedy?! There are so many failures and so many places to assign blame:

*the fifteen-year-old himself
*the parents and the last fifteen years of parenting, but especially the last few weeks
*terrifyingly and absurdly lax gun laws
*the school's decision making

If there are mental health issues or bullying, we can add them to the list. We *should* add them to the list. We are all wondering but just don't know about that yet.

This isn't excuse making, this is trying to understand an almost incomprehensible reality to even have a chance to prevent another one in the future. It is very likely that if even ONE factor had been radically different the tragedy would have been prevented! It definitely would not have happened that day.

Again, these are not excuses and no one, as far as I know, wants to let the kids or the parents off the hook. But there are multiple factors that contributed and led up to the events and we should want to understand all of them.