PAT CROSSLEY/Sun-Gazette Parents address the Williamsport Area School Board Tuesday night, where the audience was standing room only.

Students shared stories of the chaos they were swept up in and the terror they felt following a “swatting” incident at the Williamsport Area High School last week, while parents who attended the standing room only school board meeting voiced their anger at the way the incident was handled.

A sophomore at the high school who had been in the cafeteria where the incident occurred said that she and her friends “thought we were going to die.”

“I blacked out, scared for my life and while others got trampled and shoved into things, I hid under a table with first year students,” she said.

She described a scene where tables were knocked over, chairs on the ground, laptops forgotten and shoes falling off following the panic that ensued after a student had banged on a door in the cafeteria and shouted that he had been shot, throwing the students into a mass panic thinking there was an active shooter on the high school campus.

When she stood up, the student shared that she noticed there were no police officers, teachers or any other adult in the cafeteria.

“Upon making it outside, there were children calling family, thinking it would be for the last time, sobbing and having panic attacks; jumping over the fence and running,” she said.

When she finally walked outside, she said that she officers at the school laughing with the police officers who had arrived because children had called 911 “because they thought they were going to die,”‘ she said

“They (the officers) were laughing with each other, not comforting kids, not checking inside-laughing. And the week prior, a student had brought a firearm to our campus,” she said.

“I ask you today, how am I supposed to feel safe when walking through the hallways…when going to the bathroom, when eating lunch. I ask what you’re going to do to change how our students handle this. If not, children will live in fear at your hands,” she added.

The frustration, concern and fear that parents had felt, as the events of that day unfolded at the school, and still felt days later, was translated into angry words aimed at the district administration.

Parents related how in the chaos that overwhelmed the situation, students had run from the high school building to the football stadium where they had been trained to go in a situation like that, only to find the gate locked. They told of students that had gotten pushed in the panicked crowd running from the cafeteria and out of the building.

Rachel Hickoff said that her child was leaving the orchestra room, heading to a sixth period class when about 30 students ran out of the cafeteria kitchen yelling “gun, run, get out.”

“She looked out the glass door and saw a bunch of kids running. She doesn’t even remember running. She doesn’t remember being in the woods,”Hickoff said.

Her daughter headed to the middle school. When she got there, there were a lot of cars, State Police cars going up the hill to the high school. At that point everyone thought there had been a shooting.

Students were trying to find siblings and friends.

“I know parents who got calls from their kids and could hear their kids running for five seconds and kids screaming. It was traumatic for many, many people,” Hickoff said.

Some of the students who went down the hill to the middle school were turned away even though no one knew for sure that there had not been a shooting.

“At the very least, the students should have been gathered on the football field and accounted for. There are apps for that,” Hickoff said.

In her remarks to the board and those in attendance, Janelle Drummond emphasized that both parents and youth have “expressed sincere concern for the safety of our children.”

“I’m asking for a change of policy as soon as possible, starting with immediate mandatory clear backpacks, or the elimination of backpacks in both middle and high school. But the bigger picture is focusing on what needs to be done on our end as parents and taxpayers, to be a part of your $199,922,107 budget to implement the installation of metal detectors and part time security guards to cover them. We are also asking for more active shooter drills in the schools so the kids are aware of the protocol. I’m also asking for the Safe to Say program to be reintroduced to the students and the administration staff, and advertised more in safe spaces, such as bathrooms, libraries or locker rooms, or maybe a lanyard or a key chain for every individual student, for them to possess where they are safe, to make the call if needed. Using this program offers many incentives for the school, which should be further looked into,” Drummond said.

“The ball has been dropped when it comes to the trust between the parent and the school, and this discussion is long overdue. Between the conflicting stories to the other school districts informing their students and parents about what’s going on in our school district before us, it’s time we come together as a community and be on the front line and save our youth and make sure they are receiving the education that they deserve while being and feeling safe in Williamsport Area School District. Please support us, parents and our students and our taxpayers of your community in this mission to keep our kids safe, we are asking to be notified of such swatting incidents as they come out for any incidents of that matter, and to see what security measures that were purchased within the previous budget that you just spoke on,” Drummond said.

Several parents who spoke also advocated for the purchase of metal detectors to screen everyone who enters the building, a possibility which Superintendent Dr. Timothy S. Bowers had spoken about at the beginning of the meeting.

“I want to emphasize to all of you that we take school security extremely seriously. Our district has spent millions of dollars the last few years to add security levels to our system. But it doesn’t mean that fluke things and strange things and scary things can’t happen, and that’s really what happened in the last two incidents,” Bowers said.

Addressing the incident where a gun was found through discovery in a student’s backpack, Bowers said that the administration had met with the incident command team. He assured the public at the meeting that decisions about security measures are not made in a vacuum.

“We actually have experts that we meet on a regular basis, and we tabletop things that happen or try to prevent things from happening. And we vet things. We try to do this. We look at research, and we look at things that we should or should not be doing in order to protect our school community,” Bowers said.

Referring to the incident that happened Friday, Bowers said the district had been alerted that there was going to be a national “swatting” incident, but that it had been vetted by law enforcement as was not considered credible. The administration had been notifying staff and students about the rumors coming in on social media when the incident in the cafeteria occurred.

“We were literally in the process of doing some of that when, unfortunately, in a cafeteria, a student made a really bad decision and smashed the handlebar on one of our doors… and it made a loud bang. And we believe the same student actually made a comment of, hey, I got shot in the leg,” Bowers said.

Students, faculty and administration reacted as they had been trained to leave the building if they heard shots being fired. .

“But obviously, it’s very scary, right? For all of our parents, very scary for us as well,” Bowers said.

I mean, it was a drill. It ended up being a drill for us. We certainly learned some things for

that. We now know for sure how kids are going to react and how teachers are going to react

and how the community is going to react,” he said.

He indicated that the district met with law enforcement and community leaders to see how more “layers of security” could be added to the district and the community.

One of the layers, a gun detection and intelligent software platform which utilizes Artificial Intelligence, was approved by the board during their meeting at a cost of $84,000 per year for five years with a one-time set up fee of $10,000. Funding will come from the general fund.

Several times during the meeting parents stressed that they wanted metal detectors because they felt that was the only way to keep any guns from entering the building. Two years ago the district had invested in an intelligent camera system for security and Bowers shared that they are currently vetting metal detectors, but one of the factors is determining who would staff them.

“The pros and cons of doing a system like that, that takes time that is not something you can

do overnight,” Bowers said.

“We ask for your patience…So we’re not saying no to that. We’re saying give us time to vet it,” Bowers said.

A sophomore at the high school urged the board and the administration to be more proactive in their approach to security, finding a way to protect the students.

“In our school, everything is reactive. I heard about the AI technology, but we are never proactive one bit. Things need to be done. There is nothing to prevent things from going in and out of our school,” the student said.

I was running for my life preparing to die that day. I’m supposed to be there to get an education, but I thought I was going to die there. I’m supposed to feel safe at my own high school. I never want to experience that again. I don’t want my friends to experience that and I don’t want my mom or my dad hearing that this would be their last time talking to their daughter,” she said.