Administration and students reflect on confessions page threat

On Wednesday, March 20, SMUHSD officials and the San Mateo Police Department responded to a security threat made to Aragon High School. The threat was posted at approximately 11 p.m. the night of Tuesday, March 19 on a Facebook page called “AHS Confessions.” Although cryptic, it alluded to a possible attack on the school on March 21. The school day passed with no unusual occurrences.

“AHS Confessions,” a Facebook page created by an anonymous administrator on Sunday, March 17, allowed Facebook users to submit confessions through an anonymous Google form. The confessions were then publicly posted on the page. At the time of the post, the page had over 100 “likes,” mostly from Aragon students, although it had no official affiliation with the school.

Principal Kurtz was notified of the threat Wednesday morning after multiple students reported it to a teacher. Junior Brendan Stanton says, “When I first saw the post, I didn’t know what to think. There were a lot of jokes on the page, but this one was too far. The next morning at Chamber Choir, I told Mr. Martin and he called Ms. Kurtz.”

Aragon administrators immediately contacted the SMPD, and officers arrived on campus at 8:30 a.m. Kurtz also notified SMUHSD Superintendent Scott Laurence, who arrived on campus at about 7:30 a.m.

During third period, an announcement was made over the PA system asking teachers to check their email. The email informed teachers of the threat and requested that they not relay this information to students. However, many students had already seen the post, and by 10 a.m., the topic had circulated through Twitter.

Joint meetings with Aragon administrators, district officials, and the SMPD were held throughout the day. Kurtz says, “The San Mateo Police Department was incredibly helpful. They were very respectful to everybody, all of the students and adults that they talked to. [They] provided excellent service to us and our school and just understood the importance of having to protect 1500 students and 130 staff members… They were calling the shots and telling us what was credible and not credible at that point.”

The threatening post was deleted from the “AHS Confessions” page at 2:52 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20, and the entire page was removed from Facebook shortly after. Kurtz did confirm that multiple students were summoned to the office in regards to the post, but it remains unclear how many students were involved and what transpired during these meetings.

The decision to remain in session on Thursday was made with significant police involvement and guidance.

At 4:30 p.m., a statement was released to the press which acknowledged the threat and announced that school would remain in session the following day. The statement noted, “While it is not our experience that real threats are posted in advance on popular on-line forums, the safety of our City’s students and school campuses are of paramount concern. Police presence will be heightened at the campus in the interim.” That evening, the same message was sent directly to students and parents via email and a pre-recorded phone call.

Police officers in uniform and plainclothes patrolled the campus for the remainder of the week, and a private security firm was hired for overnight surveillance of the school.

Kurtz adds, “I think the concern is it’s a very fine line as an administrator… to walk. It’s making sure that everyone’s safe, but it’s also not buying into the hysteria.”

739 students did not attend school on Thursday. All absences were excused for the day.

Junior Alex Garcialuna says, “The reason I did come to school on Thursday was that I didn’t really want to cave in to fear. This person who [posed] this threat wanted us to cave to fear because for some reason he thought it would be fun to make people avoid coming to school… I realized that if I didn’t come to school, I would be playing into his hands, sort of. So I didn’t really want to do that, you know—it just sort of seemed wrong.”

Freshman Mark Osorio adds, “[In] my 5th period class, there were only six other students including me, and we had a substitute. We didn’t really get work done. It was just more talking and we kept the door locked. The school kind of felt like a ghost town.” However, he adds, “We were informed of the police on campus, and you felt this protection with the number of officers on campus and the precautions teachers were making. It made you feel really safe.”

Freshman Ryan McAuliffe says, “It was more my mom’s fault that I missed school. She said she would never have forgiven herself if anything had happened… You can’t mess around with this kind of stuff. This isn’t something you should joke around with.”

Senior James Garcia adds, “I thought it wasn’t real, like a joke. But, given recent events, it wasn’t worth the risk.”

Regardless of the message’s actual intent, parent and student responses varied greatly. Kurtz noted the potential difficulties involved with relaying information in an emergency and says, “We don’t have a good database of everybody’s email addresses or cell phone numbers. We have them, but we don’t have them in an easily accessible situation. We tend to use the all-call system, the robo calls… We’re struggling to find a better way.”

She adds, “I think what scares me about robo calls is [that] we use them frequently, whether it be to advertise the play, to tell your parents you weren’t in class fifth period… then all of a sudden, we’re putting this out as a very serious message. I think they’re effective, but do some people hear ‘oh robo call,’ and just hang up before they even listen to it?”

A “security discussion” was held privately by several administrators and faculty on April 10 at lunch in the principal’s conference room as part of a series of talks that administration will expand to include more members of the Aragon community.

In an email sent the evening of March 21, Kurtz urged parents and students to discuss online safety and the proper use of social media. However, in the wake of the incident, two additional confessions pages have been created.

The second page, “Aragon Confessions,” which first appeared on Facebook around 7:30 p.m. on March 26, was deleted by the anonymous administrator after an hour due to objections from students. The third confessions page, “AHS Confessions 2,” was created around 6:00 p.m. on April 10.

While the recent high school confessions page frenzy has sparked controversy in the past few weeks, numerous university-affiliated pages of a similar style have been in existence for several months.

Kurtz says, “After reading through what people [post], I don’t necessarily feel that the content is providing any support to students, so I’m not sure what service or what good is coming out of the confessions page.”

Sophomore Catherine O’Brien, who commented on the threatening post soon after it was published on AHS Confessions, adds, “When I saw the post on the page, I didn’t think that it was a funny joke. I realized that this could be one of my classmates or close friends. I took it seriously and realized that I needed to say something. I received positive feedback for what I did. I was acknowledged by Mr. Silton in class and it felt good to have something good come back to me from the Aragon community. I think that the administration handled it well. Everyone thought the page would be funny but it should stop; it’s distasteful. It’s a good thing to have an outlet for people to voice confessions, but an anonymous Facebook page is not the right place.”

The SMPD investigation of the threat is ongoing. Kurtz says, “What we found out is that we weren’t the only school that’s been targeted. There’s been schools in the city, there’s been one over in the east bay—other schools have had inappropriate things and threats put up on their confessions page. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure if it’s because in many ways they’re relatively new… [or] the fact that you can be anonymous on it where you can’t be on other social media [outlets].”