Bomb threats, Hit Lists and now MRSA?

Edison Local School district has certainly had their fair share of problems over the past several years including being put on a fiscal watch by the state of Ohio Board of Education. Their financial woes mainly attributed to a horrid mismanagement of funds have landed them in a position to ask for money in the form of a Levy. As with any Levy campaign some things get swept under the carpet to avoid negative publicity in hopes that the levy will pass, but just to what extent and at what risk can some things get overlooked?

Well, according to sources within the Edison School District, there have been several disturbing unreported events that the public certainly should have been made aware of regardless of politics. Within the past two and a half months of this 2007 – 2008 school year there has been a hit list at Edison High School, a bomb threat at Stanton Middle School and the most recent event is that its been confirmed there are cases of MRSA at Stanton Middle School. These are all very significant events that have slipped under the radar and the general public, especially within the Edison School District, were never notified. Members close to OhioValleyNOW.com have attempted to get this information into the news through Channel 9 (WTOV) to no avail. Their stance on the hit list alone was that they did not wish to report on that particular subject so that it did not give ideas to children attending these schools. Although WTOV does have an extensive presence here in the Ohio Valley, they are located very close to the area that this took place in , so our guess was that maybe they "chose" not to report on this information until after the votes are cast on November 6th .

The Bomb threat was made and the school was evacuated, however the students were not evacuated very far. They were escorted to buses outside waiting to transport them home. However these buses didn't even leave the school grounds immediately as they certainly should have. The buses sat there right outside the school while firemen went into the building to retrieve personal items for some of the children. This caused the children to actually come home later than normal. A source close to OVN said that the only reason it was discovered there was a bomb threat was because a phone call was placed to Stanton Middle School wanting to know when the child would be home. That was when it was discovered that there was a bomb threat.

The hit list found at Edison High School was never made public and the Edison School District only contacted the families involved; those that were on the hit list and those that produced the hit list. Some members who were on the list had received nothing more than a voice message on their answering machine briefly explaining what had occurred. Not only was the hit list not publicized by the Edison School District, but The Jefferson County Sheriff's office, which is usually pretty good about notifying the public of such events, was very quiet on this subject. They handled the situation and dealt with the offending parties, but not one scrap of information was disbursed to the general public.

Last, but certainly not least, is the newly discovered MRSA cases at Stanton Middle School. A call was placed to Stanton Middle School asking about this incident and yes it was confirmed that there are cases of MRSA. It was asked "was a student or a faculty member diagnosed with MRSA?" the response: "we aren't sure, but we might know this afternoon". This statement suggests to us that there have been cases of MRSA and that it has spread to more and at least the school will be finding out who has this deadly disease, whether they choose to then share the information with the public has yet to be seen.

Our thoughts on this First off, what the hell is this school district trying to pull? This school district wants a new levy to pass but yet has no interest in protecting our children. Where is the news in all this, ESPECIALLY WTOV? They have reported school shootings in other areas across the country, are they just trying to suppress it here to help the School District? They have reported on Bomb threats here in the area even recently and they have reported on other MRSA cases that were close to home. Censorship is clearly alive and well at WTOV and in the Edison School District.

According to recent polls the Edison School District Levy is doomed; it will not pass so all of this was for nothing. They have put our children at a very high risk for their own benefit. The school board has done nothing, the news has done nothing and the Sheriffs department has done nothing to make sure the public is aware of these serious events. Are these groups really concerned about the safety of our children?