BY SUE KIESEWETTER
Enquirer Contributor
DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP -- A 15-year-old Kings High School freshman has been suspended from school and faces expulsion after threatening to shoot an eighth-grader at Kings Junior High School.
It is the district's first test of a "zero tolerance" policy for violence or threats of violence adopted by the Kings Board of Education earlier this summer following a rash of school shootings across the nation.
The threat came Wednesday morning in the office of Joy Steller, assistant principal at Kings High School. She had been talking with the students, who are neighbors, about an altercation on a school bus Tuesday.
Ms. Steller was talking with the older boy when the threat was made, school officials said. The younger boy was not in the office at the time.
"I told (the older boy) that any threat would lead to suspension or expulsion," Ms. Steller said in a statement.
Once the threat was made, Ms. Steller called the Warren County Sheriff's office. The investigation is pending and no criminal charges have been filed, said Capt. Gary Miller with the Warren County Sheriff's office.
Kings Superintendent David Query spoke to students at both buildings about the incident.
"We're not going to tolerate any threats. We're not taking any chances," Mr. Query told first-year students at an unrelated school assembly. "It's important. You can't say things you don't mean. We will not tolerate it."
Mr. Query said the 15-year-old boy has been suspended for 10 days and is recommended for expulsion. A hearing on the expulsion will be scheduled.
"We've told our students repeatedly that any and all threats of violence will be taken seriously and that the harshest possible consequences will be applied to the situation," Mr. Query said. "We're not using this as an example. This is what will happen whenever anything like this occurs."
