Girl expelled for bomb threat at Oak Harbor High School

A 16-year-old girl at Oak Harbor High School was expelled Friday in connection to a bomb threat that caused the evacuation of the school.

Principal Dwight Lundstrom said that he doesn’t like to expel students, but the seriousness of the bomb threat warranted such action.

“It’s a pretty heavy step and it’s something we don’t like to do,” Lundstrom said.

\Unless the student appeals the disciplinary action, she will be out of school for the remainder of the school year. The student also can’t transfer out of the district because the school district won’t release transcripts.

Lundstrom said he didn’t know yet whether the student will appeal the expulsion.

The Friday expulsion stems from an bomb threat that employees discovered in a girls bathroom Thursday afternoon. Police and staff searched the building that day. Because the threat referred to a specific time, the school was evacuated Friday morning so police could search the building again.

Lundstrom said the bomb threat was similar to the ones that plagued the school in early 2005. In each incident, students were evacuated to a nearby field while police and staff searched the building.

“It was a follow-on from last year,” Lundstrom said.

Oak Harbor High School and Hillcrest Elementary School were evacuated because of more than one dozen bomb threats discovered in restrooms during the last half of the school year.

Lundstrom said three students were disciplined for their connection with those bomb threats. One female student was suspended for a semester. Lundstrom, citing privacy concerns, wouldn’t comment on what happened with the other two students.

Oak Harbor Police Capt. Rick Wallace said officers are investigating whether the girl involved in Friday’s incident was involved with the earlier bomb threats.

“We haven’t filed any charges at this point,” Wallace said.

He said the suspended student is considered a person of interest in last week’s bomb threats as well as the others that happened at the high school.

The student was arrested on separate charges of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Those charges came up during questioning of the bomb threat but are considered separate from last week’s incident, Wallace said.

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