School apologizes for delayed notification of threatened shooting
A Fulton County schools spokeswoman said a technological mix-up prevented parents of Centennial High students from being alerted in a timely manner about a threatened shooting Tuesday on the Roswell campus.
School officials discovered the threat Monday afternoon, when someone scribbled on a wall, "A shooting. Tomorrow. Dec. 20, 2011."
Centennial Principal Steve Miletto taped a voice message that was to be emailed to all school parents Monday night.
"Unfortunately, there were issues with the school messenger system," Fulton schools spokeswoman Samantha Evans said.
SchoolMessenger Vice President Nate Brogan disputed that, telling the AJC "the service performed as designed and expected."
According to Brogan, system logs showed no attempt to login to the service or even prepare a message until 9:39 a.m. Tuesday.
Parent Todd Copilevitz said he was taken aback when he opened the email around 10 a.m. -- after classes had begun.
"I immediately sent a text to my daughter to make sure everything was OK," said Copilevitz, the father of a Centennial junior.
The threatened shooting was to have taken place at 12:40 p.m., but school officials said the day has gone by without any problems. Extra security was brought into the school and teachers and administrators were on heightened alert, Evans told the AJC.
School officials are still trying to track down the person who wrote the threat.
About the Author
A native Atlantan, Boone joined the AJC staff in 2007. He quickly carved out a niche covering crime stories, assuming the public safety beat in 2014. He's covered some of the biggest trials this decade, from Hemy Neuman to Ross Harris to Chip Olsen, the latter of which was featured on Season 7 of the AJC's award-winning "Breakdown" podcast.
