SchoolFinder Blog

Ware County School Board Issues a Statement

Good Monday. Btw, I discovered that on the Ware County School System site, there’s a profile page for the Center Elementary School. One of the mission/beliefs of the school reads as follows: “It is our responsibility to provide an environment of physical comfort and safety.”

Suffice it to say that the steak knife incident was not aligned to this statement!

(the crime scene)

At the end of a board meeting last Friday, the Ware County Board of Education issues a statement addressing the Center Elementary School incident. Here it is in its entirety:

As a board, we believe that it is appropriate that we make a public statement concerning the events that took place at Center Elementary last Friday. While, we are certainly disappointed by the behavior of these students, we are satisfied that the system for insuring student and teacher safety worked, and because of that, no one was hurt. From the student who saw the knife and reported it to a teacher, to the teacher who reported the knife to the principal, to the principal’s prompt action in questioning the students and removing them from the classroom and from the school, to the involvement of central office administration and local law enforcement officials, safety protocol was followed to the letter.

The board would like to officially commend the student who reported the incident. We feel that this action was in direct response to the effective training the student had been provided by the Center Elementary staff. As the superintendent has stated in his remarks, many may speculate on the student’s intentions, but there is no way to know what these students’ full intentions were or whether or not they would have acted upon those intentions.

What we do know is that students contrived a plan and brought items: a broken steak knife, a set of handcuffs, a long ribbon, two types of tape and a crystal paperweight to school. These items, plus the plan outlined by the students, gave the administration enough reason to suspend seven of the students for the remainder of the school year.

Two of the students were suspended for a lesser amount of time due to the extent of their involvement.

The Ware County Board of Education supports safe and secure schools, and we believe that the administration acted appropriately in their responses. We agree with the consequences that have been levied. The board regrets that in some circumstances individuals who were uninformed about the situation have communicated incorrect information to the public. The board attempts to communicate to the public in a timely and succinct manner, but we are governed by confidentiality laws during periods of investigation. We make every attempt to give as much accurate information as possible, as soon as possible.

In an open letter to parents, principal Angie Coleman called the Center Elementary community a great community, a supportive community, and a caring community. Like Ms. Coleman, the board is confident that together, students, staff, parents, school, government officials, religious leaders and all community members must continue to work together to supervise and be aware of what our children are doing, what they are talking about, who their friends are, and what they watch on television.

It is up to each and every person in our community to help make Ware County a great place to go to school.