Montvale students charged with disorderly conduct, may have talked of harming teacher

By: Christa Desrets | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: May 06, 2008

Three sixth-grade students at Montvale Elementary School have been suspended and two of them each face a misdemeanor charge after being suspected of talking about physically harming a teacher at the school, Bedford County officials said today.

School officials interviewed the students, and school resource officers and investigators with the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office searched their homes for weapons on Friday, but found no physical evidence, said Major Ricky Gardner.

The three sixth-grade boys allegedly had a conversation on a school bus Thursday that “consisted of threats of bodily harm towards a teacher,” according to Gardner and a news release from the sheriff’s office.

“It turned out that one of the students had been disciplined by a teacher, and he was just mad at the teacher,” Gardner said.

Two of the boys now face charges of disorderly conduct, he said. The Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office will prosecute the case in the county’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

All three have been suspended from school, said Bedford County Schools spokesman Ryan Edwards, pending a hearing with the students, their parents and Superintendent James Blevins. That hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Edwards said that a concerned parent notified the sher-iff’s office about the students’ chatter early Friday morning. He was unsure how the parent had heard about it.

“There was chatter amongst three students, and during that chatter reportedly there was some talk about doing harm to a faculty member,” Edwards said.

The school system on Friday sent a letter home with Montvale students to inform parents of the situation, Edwards said.

“The severity of the threat, if it can be verified, dictates the severity of the punishment,” he said. “We don’t take any threats lightly, no matter how insignificant they may seem.”

He said the teacher has continued classes since then.

“She was understandably under a significant amount of stress when she learned of the situa-tion, but she has carried on and has done a great job at continu-ing to prepare and instruct her students,” Edwards said.