The situation that had occurred Thursday before Fall Break sparked a lot of controversy around the school and the decisions made on how the situation was handled. We believe that the staff member who brought the issue to the Aurora Sentinel showed the public what was going on and informed students and parents when the district did not. Aurora Public Schools should have been the source for that information, not a news article or an automated voicemail that went out the day of the threat at the beginning of second hour.

It is understandable not to cancel school as it may attract other threats and attention from kids just looking to just get out of school for a day, but parents and students need to be informed if going to school could potentially be a dangerous endeavor.

The threat was decided to be “not credible.” It does not seem right to make that claim without looking into the threat that could possibly endanger more than 2,000 people. That issue has to do with the Aurora Police Department, which made the “not credible” claim. Once the media took hold of it, the Aurora PD did not take long to resolve the threat and take the suspect into custody, so why did they not just do that in the first place? It seems the issue could have been solved just hours after it arose.

All of this creates mistrust between the students and the organizations in charge of these decisions. When that happened, many students took to social media and took their anger out, blaming Rangeview, which was the wrong target for this mistrust. We believe Rangeview did everything in its power for the safety of the students. Its power was just limited by the school district, it seems.

The situation was resolved but on the occasion that another threat like this occurs, hopefully the district will take the initiative and inform the public before a staff member is forced to take the situation to the media. Threats like this should be taken seriously by everyone involved, especially given the recent shootings around the nation. Until the situation was resolved, it should have been treated as a serious thing, not just swept under the rug without the public knowing.

Editorial Board: Michael Cordova, Alivia Lee, Vanessa Guereca, Dennae Pigford, Sebastian Wiegand, Schuyler Yager