One of the stick figures appeared to have a gun and the rest appeared to be lying down, Newell said.
There was a date of April 11 on the drawing, he said.
A classroom teacher alerted administrators during the school’s third period. By the time school officials made it to the classroom, another student had wiped it off the desk.
“I never actually saw it,” Newell said.
Administrators interviewed students who sat in or around the desk but weren’t able to determine who drew the picture or when the sketch was made.
“We’ve never been able to find out through our investigations who did it,” Newell said. “It’s not unusual to find drawings on desks ... it could have been done after school.”
Shortly after the drawing was discovered, graffiti was found on the wall of a girl’s lavatory, also alluding to an April event.
“It said something like, ‘it’s going to go down in April,’ ” Newell said of the message.
The school alerted the Middletown Division of Police, which has declined comment on an ongoing investigation.
Even if the threat isn’t believed to carry substance, a prompt reaction by school officials is necessary in the contemporary age.
Newell placed an automated call to high school parents Monday and said there will be a heightened police presence in the building on any days in question. There is now more than one, he said, because of the school rumor mill.
“Over the course of interviewing students and through Facebook and everything else, the dates have changed,” he said. “But (they) all go back to the same doodling.”
There have been no new occurrences at the high school, Newell said.
Jennifer Holbrook, who has two children enrolled at the high school, said it was “disheartening” to hear about the drawing.
“It sounds like the school is on top of it,” she said. “It’s a little scary when you’re talking about guns and the threatening of dates. You want to protect your children the best you can and you hope the school system does the same.”
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