Team 4 Reports: Students, Parents Confused After Penn Hills Threat (videos)

Team 4 Reports: Students, Parents Confused After Penn Hills Threat





Parents Upset After Penn Hills Bomb Threat:

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Chaotic Penn Hills Scene Caught On Video:


http://news.yahoo.com/video/pittsburghkdka-15751084/chaotic-penn-hills-scene-caught-on-video-24056926

I put in a call yesterday morning to the Superintendant's office, I got a call back last night around 8:30 pm from the Director of Secondary Ed(see how THAT works...why are they still paying Vak??) My main question was the safety of the students and why there appeared to be no emergency plan in place...he said, that when the threat came in they closed the school until the building was able to be certified as safe, they moved the students en route to the school along with staff to the Fralic Center and since they were told it would take several hours for the Bomb Dogs to arrive. The PHPD could not control the fights and the PHPD then removed all the students from Penn Hills school property.

What I know is: Penn Hills Is supposed to have an emergency plan in place in the event of just such an EMERGENCY, just like they're supposed to have a fire drill in place in the case of a fire. The Fralic Center could not hold all the students and staff as the video shows....HE said, the plan is specific to the students being on site only, there is no contingency plan ....so apparently the emergency plan would have worked had an EMERGENCY occured during it's pre-scheduled emergency time when all the children were in class with hands folded. Why were the children en route, ALREADY on the bus not diverted to another school?? I'm sure the buses werent caught in a tractor beam forcing them to bring and drop off the children at the Fralic, someONE told the drivers where to take the children. Seems that no ONE told them to come back for them...

The call I got at 8:10am was NOT to say there was an incident at the PH High School and your child was put off campus to walk home since no bus was provided to carry them safely back.....it said, the buses for Linton and Elementary School students will be delayed. The call to alert a parent that there was an incident at the high school (codeword for: their High School child was NOT where they were supposed to be -school) didn't come until 9am. High School children catch the bust no later than 6:50am.
Parents were frantic, children were afraid, confused and panic set in. Isn't the point of having an emergency plan supposed to be to implement it, make sure the children are safe and accounted for, the parents are notified all while allowing the proper authorities to handle the emergency?

I will not accept the following phrases from Penn Hills Administration: We tried our best; We'll know better next time; We did the best with what we had;We are working to understand why this happened.....
How long can this administration fail to educate and now protect and transport our children safely? How long will they receive their paychecks for a poor or mediocre job done with our children, our nerves left to pay the cost as well as our tax dollars? Not NEXT time...right now. This incident should have NEVER taken place, regardless of the threat there should have been a plan, this is not 1957, this is post 9/11 every company, school& business has an emergency plan....they can send home all of the redacted, well written explanation letters they want, the fact remains that again the parents and students are left bearing the weight while the Keystone Cops of a central administration runs around pointing fingers at each other, pretend to investigate and study the problem for solution for next time, but are still in line at the bank.