Parents/Guardians, Faculty & Staff of Taylor County Schools,
As you may have learned, the country has recently been experiencing an increased number of threatening messages on many different Social Media sites that suggest several schools, including some in West Virginia, are under threat of some egregious actions being planned.
I want to clarify and reassure you that our first priority is the safety of your (our) students, faculty, and staff. As such, we take all such threats about and or toward any of our stakeholders extremely seriously.
Currently, please know that we have received no credible information suggesting any of our schools in Taylor County are being targeted for, or are in danger of, such activity.
However, because we take this seriously, we are also keeping in touch with our State Department of Education, the State Superintendent of WV Schools, as well as Homeland Security to continue to monitor any activity of this nature.
In response to this social media chatter, our Governor, the Honorable Jim Justice, and his office have also been investigating this important concern.
Please also know that if/as we learn of any credible threats toward any of our school facilities, we are prepared to respond with measures intended to keep our school students, faculty, and staff safe.
When needing to do so, we ask for your assistance in minimizing phone traffic so that our need to communicate with essential personnel is not compromised.
In addition, please refrain from sharing/reposting, etc. the various social media posts that address these threatening messages, it isn’t helpful and only adds confusion and concernto the situation being investigated, as well as having the potential to stress your (our child(ren). Rather, our united goal needs to be of a calm nature as we trust the authorities to help investigate and respond to these situations.
If/when something of a credible nature is learned through investigation being conducted by the authorities in this sort of thing, it will be our intent to communicate to you through our systems already in place as soon as possible.
Thank you, in advance, for your assistance with this issue,
Dr. John E. Stallings, Jr.
Superintendent, Taylor County Schools