MILL CREEK — A series of disturbing posts on Twitter that made reference to Jackson High School in Mill Creek has led to confusion among parents and the Everett School District.
The principal learned of the tweets Tuesday night, district spokeswoman Mary Waggoner said. Notification letters, emails and phone calls went out to parents in the district Wednesday morning.
The posts involved an anonymous user making threats of self-harm, Waggoner said. No threats were made to others.
School was in session on Wednesday but about half of the students didn’t attend, she said.
The district is listening to parents’ frustrations that more information wasn’t shared sooner, she said.
District officials wanted to wait until they had a more complete story, Waggoner said. They now are considering how to handle similar threats in the future, considering the alarmed response to the original posts.
The district also posted an apology on its Facebook page: “We are sorry the information shared with families could not be confirmed and validated earlier than it was this morning. Rather than sharing partial information or information we were unsure of, we responded as early as possible with the facts and after working through the night with law enforcement.”
Mill Creek police weren’t immediately available Wednesday to discuss their investigation. They are in contact with Twitter to try to determine the identity of the author of the tweets.
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