A Manton High School student was taken into custody after showing a gun to a classmate aboard a school bus during a September incident, and the fallout has led to new rules for high school students in Manton Consolidated Schools. The district is now rolling out five new security rules, from mandatory locker use to a ban on blankets, as administrators scramble to close gaps exposed by the scare.
The bus incident, first reported in September, led investigators to recover two additional guns from a second student's house during the investigation, according to Cadillac News. The suspect was taken into custody by the Wexford County Sheriff's Office, and no injuries were reported, per 9&10 News. Authorities said there was no imminent threat to students, the same Cadillac News report notes.
Five New Rules Take Hold
Manton Consolidated Schools is implementing five new security rules in response to the incident, as reported by MLive.com. High school students must now keep their backpacks in lockers during school hours, and classrooms are required to remain locked during instruction. The cafeteria entrance will also be monitored during lunch, and students who need to access their vehicles during the school day will be escorted rather than walking out alone.
Perhaps the most talked-about change: MLive says students may not wear blankets at school, while UpNorthLive says students are being asked not to wear them.
A Locker Shortage Complicates the Rollout
Enforcing mandatory locker use has exposed a logistical wrinkle. Only about 40 of Manton High School's roughly 300 students had been using lockers regularly before the new policy, the 9&10 News report found. Now the high school is short by 19 lockers, and administrators are planning to order more while also considering moving lockers over from the middle school, according to the same outlet's reporting.
A Warning That Didn't Pan Out — Then a Real One Did
Earlier on the day of the bus incident, an 11th-grade student named Bethany Davidson emailed Manton High School Principal Char Siddall shortly after 11 a.m. on Sept. 16 to report hearing that a classmate planned to fight someone and had a gun, Cadillac News reported. Administrators investigated the report but found no evidence that either of the two identified students had a gun, the outlet noted. University of Michigan school-safety expert Justin Heinze told Cadillac News that it is not unusual for a school to investigate a secondhand report of a potential threat without notifying law enforcement or the public, noting, “It's not unusual for a school to investigate a secondhand report of a potential threat to students without notifying law enforcement or the public.”
The Wexford-Missaukee ISD uses the state police-sponsored Michigan K-12 Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management program, known as Mi-BTAM, per Cadillac News, and Manton school staff are also trained in the “I Love U Guys” and AVIRT protocols for responding to active threats, the outlet reported. Under Michigan law, a superintendent or designee must immediately report a dangerous weapon found on a school bus to the student's parent or legal guardian and to local law enforcement, according to Michigan Legislature statute.
What Comes Next
District officials say they are revisiting communication procedures and clarifying staff roles in the wake of the incident, according to a report from UpNorthLive, which quoted the district saying it is focused on “making sure that everyone knows their roles.” The district is also considering streamlining its camera, door-card and vape-detector systems into one platform, per the same report. Separately, the district is increasing staff monitoring of students leaving and returning from off-campus lunch, 9&10 News reported.
Timelines for full implementation have varied slightly between outlets. UpNorthLive reported most measures were expected to be fully implemented the week of its report, while 9&10 News reported the new safety policies and mandatory locker rules were scheduled to go into effect at the end of the following week. The district has said it is evaluating its response and current safety policies alongside law enforcement, Cadillac News reported.
