Hello, this is the student body of Carthage Central High School. Concerns have been raised over the handling of our safety and others over a recent incident that stems back from a week ago and leads up to today, September 13th. We are disheartened and upset over the handling of this situation and feel it was not fully and properly addressed until it was leaked to us. A statement was put out after information was released on social media by students, implying the fact that we would have been left in the dark about a school shooting threat, something extremely serious that we as the student body should have been informed about for our own safety, and to be allowed to take our own precautions. Missing x amounts of students for a day is remediable, missing x amounts of students permanently is not. We know these students have been making threats for a week of shooting someone, lunging at students and mock-pulling weapons out of their bags in the halls, and we know now that these students have threatened to bring a gun and knives to the school on September 13th. We know that the school knew, that it had been reported several times previous to this shooting threat. And we know as well that we are not untouchable, that this can happen to us and that it will if proper precautions are not fully taken. Shootings in Carthage have occurred before, and shootings at schools have already returned, with the Apalachee school shooting taking place one school day after our first with several others following. To reiterate, these students have been reported, with their actions being known for a week, yet no punishments followed and they were allowed to escalate further and further. These threats are not credible yet nothing has come out to show that this is the case, with the state police getting involved after a student called them to report the situation. These threats are not credible yet according to the Sandy Hook Promise, “In 4 out of 5 school shootings, at least one other person had knowledge of the attacker’s plan.” Carthage Central School District had knowledge. These are our brothers and sisters. These are lives, these are children, these are daughters and sons, these are children of your own staff. We ask moving forward that Carthage Central School District take on a more proactive instead of retroactive interference, that situations like these are taken more serious. We appreciate your communication and cooperation. Thank you.