Pleasant Valley parent offers safety suggestions

Danielle Darling is hoping to start a conversation with anyone interested in making Pleasant Valley one of the safest school districts.

Darling, a mother of a Pleasant Valley graduate and two current high school students, made four suggestions to the board Thursday night that she hoped they would consider to improve safety at the school.

Last week, state police at the Fern Ridge barracks arrested a juvenile on charges of terroristic threats after a parent and a student contacted Pleasant Valley School District officials to report a threat seen on social media.

District Superintendent David Piperato said, “The high school administration was able to identify the student responsible for the threat and contacted our school district police force.”

Piperato said previously that student awareness and feeling safe in reporting what they see and hear is critical to making the schools safer.

After the threat, Darling recently started a Facebook page titled Monitoring Issues at PV. Her first suggestion was that metal detectors be stationed at the entrances to each building. She added that she had looked into the cost and was surprised that the units were less expensive than she had thought them to be. Darling offered to do fundraising to help offset the cost of the metal detectors.

Darling also wants to see the district go to a strict zero tolerance policy on terroristic threats.

“Students need to know the consequences,” she said. “No suspension, it needs to be immediate expulsion.”

“We also need more details,” Darling said. “The rumors on social media that said that the student was in ‘in-school suspension.’ When my daughter texted me that, I dropped what I was doing and I picked up both my kids.”

Lastly, Darling suggested that a safety committee made up of parents, students, faculty, administrators and even Pennsylvania State Police would maybe be the best way to share information and make suggestions.

“I want Pleasant Valley to be known as the safest school district and not the next tragedy on the news,” Darling concluded.

The online Facebook group is closed and local residents will have to request to be added to the page.

Darling said she started the page “so that as a community we can unite to ensure the safety of our children.”