Pain of letter’s threats linger at Scotts Valley High

Tuesday wasn’t the kind of board meeting Penny Weaver had intended as her swan song.
Weaver’s boxes were all packed, ready for her Thursday departure, as she wrote one last presentation for the Board of Trustees for the Scotts Valley Unified School District.
She had announced her resignation in February after five years as superintendent, to move near her ill mother in Atwater.
After praises from board members and thank-yous to her staff, she prefaced her sober presentation – “Threat Assessment Protocol” – by saying to a standing-room-only audience of more than 80 people, “I know you are feeling frustration, and we would like to be more forthcoming [but] we are restrained.”
The departing superintendent spoke in hypotheticals.
The audience in the City Hall meeting room wanted specifics. They got them from a line of parents and students.
Weaver’s unspoken topic was the audience’s outspoken topic: a letter by a 15-year-old Scotts Valley boy handed to a female classmate in early June that graphically described the fantasized rape, torture, and murder of students and a teacher, and named 18 girls, three boys and four teachers as potential victims.
When distraught and fearful students brought the letter to school authorities, they investigated.
The Scotts Valley police also investigated.
The boy was not suspended or arrested and took his final exams at the high school office. Because he is a juvenile, his identity and details of any disposition cannot be revealed by authorities.
The incident ignited a wildfire of comments on social media.
Weaver on Wednesday released the text of an email about the threatening letter that she sent to parents on June 18.
Weaver told the Tuesday audience, and four television cameras, that school policies were followed, and that they dictated that all identified victims of a serious threat be contacted by school officials.
Parents and students told the board that was not the case. One father said he learned just yesterday that his daughter was on the list.
Parents demanded information and action. The board listened politely and thanked the speakers. No action was taken.
“There are things here that have not been concluded,” said Board of Trustees Vice President Michael Shulman. “There is only so much we can talk about.”
The issue likely will be on a list of unfinished business for new superintendent Tanya Krause, who arrives to work on Tuesday, July 5, and also could linger into the fall school board elections, when all five positions are up for grabs.