Students searched after gun threat at Austintown Fitch
Staff report
Austintown
Students should notice an increase in security through the remainder of the school year.
Superintendent Vincent Colaluca said the district, which regularly has two to three officers on duty each day, brought in several more Austintown police officers Tuesday.
Students at Fitch High School and Austintown Middle School were checked with a metal-detector wand before they could enter the buildings.
Police Chief Robert Gavalier was unavailable to comment Tuesday evening.
Colaluca said the decision was made after someone wrote on a desk in a Fitch classroom last week plans to bring a gun to school.
Colaluca said the district always increases security just before graduation, anyway, but this was the first time they had officers use the wands.
“This year, with what happened at Chardon, we wanted to check everyone,” he said.
The superintendent said though parents weren’t notified of the threat, he assures them that everyone is doing everything possible to keep Austintown a safe school district.
“The biggest thing is for parents to know our schools are safe,” he said. “We put these procedures in place, and parents need to trust us.”
In Chardon earlier this year, a student brought a gun to school and killed three students.