NEWS

Two students expelled over bomb threats in Holt schools

Curt Smith
Lansing State Journal

DELHI TWP. – Two students have confessed to recent bomb threats in Holt Public Schools and have been expelled, Superintendent David Hornak told the school board Monday night.

The Holt Public Schools administrative offices.

Their cases have been turned over to the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office.

There have been six bomb threats this year at either the high school of junior high, Hornak said. The expelled students — one is a junior high school student and the other attends the high school — were connected to three of them.

"We have followed our due process guidelines,” he said. “However in the end I’ve upheld the recommendation for expulsion in both cases.”

The expulsions followed building- and administration-level meetings with the students and parents, Hornak said. The families can appeal to the Board of Education.

“We have yet to hear from the families,” he said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Hornak said the person confessing to two high school incidents in December was expelled later that month. The person Hornak says was involved in the junior high school threat in January was expelled this past week.

Since then, Hornak said, there have been two more bomb threats at the high school and another at the junior high.

“We still have active investigations on all three with hopes that we will be able to identify the person or persons who are writing the threats,” he said.

All six cases involved written threats found in restrooms.

Hornak said his office is trying to arrange materials with the Michigan State Police on the consequences of bomb threats that could be used on the district’s website, social media and in emails to parents.

“This would be another layer of helping everyone understand how severe it is to write a threat and the potential consequences that come with these threats,” he said.

Contact Curt Smith at (517) 377-1226 or csmith@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @CurtSmithLSJ.