BOONE COUNTY, Ky. — The Boone County Board of Education is under scrutiny after a student who was expelled for threatening a mass shooting was allowed to return to school this week.
A current Conner High School freshman allegedly made threats against several students last year when all were still in the 8th grade.
The Boone County School Board and Superintendent Matthew Turner decided to expel him.
One year later, the student was allowed back in to the district, beginning Wednesday. The students named on his list now attend Conner High School with him, including the school principal's son.
"It doesn't make sense and you don't have to have a degree in psychology to figure this out. Why would you put a child back into an environment where he possibly could act out?" said Jim Kruspe, father to a 9th grade student at Conner High School.
Kruspe said his daughter's name wasn't on the list, but that doesn't lessen his fear and frustration.
He and dozens of other parents packed a school board meeting Thursday night to voice their concerns, many of them putting Turner in the hot seat.
They claim he made the unilateral decision to admit the student back to school without consulting the board.
"It is completely negligent to place these students exhibiting red flags with our children at Conner High School," one mom said.
Most parents who spoke Thursday have students at Conner High School.
They said they fear for their children's safety as school shootings have become a feared reality nationwide.
"I lived in Colorado when Claire Davis was killed at Arapahoe High School," one mom said on the verge of tears. "Two miles away was my kid's elementary school and they had a lockdown."
Claire Davis was a senior at a Denver-area high school when she was shot in 2013 by a fellow student who'd made threats before.
WCPO looked into Kentucky education guidelines on discipline.
State statute says local school boards must adopt policies that students who make threats against the safety of other students or staff have to be expelled for no less than one year.
Parents like Kruspe wonder why, with the nature of this particular threat, the student was given the minimum expulsion period.
"So you could have expelled this student longer than one year," Kruspe said. "You could."
The board is not allowed to respond to public comment during meeting, only listen and take what's said into consideration.
Neither Turner nor any member of the board would speak on the matter of the expelled student nor clarify who made the call to readmit him.
"It is your responsibility, it is on your shoulders to keep our children safe," one parent said. "We are calling on you to be responsible and to do the right thing."
Newly-elected state representative Steve Rawlings from Boone County was present at Thursday's school board meeting.
He said state law concerning school expulsions needs to change.
Currently, there are no guidelines for students returning after they are expelled, no matter the circumstances.
Rawlings urged parents to send their concerns to Frankfort.
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