UPDATED: Only 300 of about 2,200 Horlick High School students show up for school after threat

By Stephanie Brien
Journal Times

Thursday, October 2, 2008 4:49 PM CDT

EARLIER ARTICLE: Security steps taken in light of Horlick threat

RACINE – Only 300 of about 2,200 Horlick High School students showed up to school today after the school received a threat indicating that something would happen, said Racine Unified School District Superintendent Jim Shaw.

“School threats are unfortunate,” Shaw said. “And unfortunately we get more than we like.”

After the school received the threat, school officials contacted the Racine Police Department and mutually they decided to give parents the option of keeping their children home, he said.

“That is a parent’s call. I never second-guess a parent,” Shaw said. “They have to act in the best interest of their children.”

Thursday morning Shaw stopped by the school and saw “a lot of teachers but not many children,” he said.

It was a boring day, said Veronica Cameron,17, who chose to go to school today.

“It was boring because we couldn’t do any work,” she said. Most of her classes had a maximum of three students and she was the only student in one of her classes, she said.

Cameron, a junior, said there have been threats every year she has been at the school and they don’t really faze her.

“Today was like the safest day,” Cameron said.

Joe Menghe, 16, said it was more of a free day in school. He received extra credit in a few classes and one of his teachers gave him a Payday candy bar just for being in school, he said. Two years ago, when he attended school after a different threat, the extra credit saved his grade. He probably would not have passed health class that year if it wasn’t for the extra credit he received, he said.

But as the numbers show, Menghe and Cameron were in the minority who attended school.

Robert Resch, 16, didn’t mind having a day off of school. His parents said he could choose if he wanted to attend school and he opted out to hang out with a friend. Instead of waking up at 5 a.m. like normal, he didn’t wake up until 10:30 a.m., he said.

But by 2:30 p.m., around the time the students would be typically getting out of school, he ended up getting a little bored, he said. And he and a friend painted their faces and rode their bikes over to school to meet up with their friends who did go to school. Resch said the police stopped them to ask why they painted their faces, but he said it was just in preparation for Halloween and they were bored.

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