St. James Middle School Principal Olga Toggas encourages her students, “if you see something, say something.”
Toggas waited 4 hours to notify the parent of “Student 1” that her child was being held, detained and, also, interrogated by Horry County Police
Reporting a threatening statement on a bathroom wall is exactly what the daughters of Kylie Weber and Jennifer Florian did. They saw a threatening message written on a bathroom wall at St. James Middle School and immediately reported it to their teacher.
The parents are shocked and upset by the suspension of their daughters.
Horry County Schools confirmed a threat was discovered in the girls’ bathroom at St. James Middle School, similar to one found at St. James High School days earlier.
A letter from St. James’ Principal Olga Toggas stated that a threatening statement was written on a bathroom wall.
According to a school district spokesperson, both investigations at the two schools have led to the identification of the persons involved. Additionally, students will face appropriate disciplinary actions per school policy as well as possible criminal charges.
According to these parents, one daughter was suspended for 3 days and another remains suspended after they found and photographed the statement, then reported it to their teacher.
Said Daughter 2, “So when we were in class, our teacher, Ms. Shirley, always takes us to the bathroom when we finish the lesson. We (she, daughter 1, and one other) were the last girls in the line to go to the bathroom. Once we got in, this other student that we were with noticed immediately… she went to the stall and noticed it. [the threatening comment written on the wall]. She went and told Ms. Shirley about what we found…. They put us in Mr. Barker’s room to come search us. Then they had us get our bags while supervised. So once they searched our bags, they found sharpies in my bag and that is what they are going off of.”
MyrtleBeachSC News asked Daughter 2, “Did you have the bags when you [initially] entered the bathroom?” Daughter 2 answered, “No.”
MyrtleBeachSC News asked Daughter 2, “Where were the bags?” Daughter 2 responded, “They were in the classroom down the hall.” MyrtleBeachSC News stated, “So when you were in the bathroom, no one had any bags.” Daughter 2 responded, “No one had any bags.“
Daughter 1 stated, “So when we were waiting, they knew we had taken a picture of it and we asked to delete it and they wouldn’t let us delete it.“
We asked both daughters, “Were the police called?” Daughter #2 said yes.
MyrtleBeachSC News stated, “So you were interrogated.” Daughter 2 responded, “I don’t know when she (daughter 1) was interrogated, but after 3 hours of me sitting there I had a panic attack that led to an asthma attack. Just sitting there by myself. I was not allowed to call my parents. I was told they were on their way. They weren’t. My parents were never called. I was just sitting there begging for my dad to be there.”
Daughter 2 added, “They finally brought me into the room. They hurried me into the room and I got interrogated by a detective for 5 minutes and then I was left out there for another hour.”
MyrtleBeachSC News asked, “Were you advised that your parents could be present before you said anything?”
Daughter 2 stated, “No, but they did read me my Miranda rights. I wasn’t allowed to contact a parent.”
MyrtleBeachSC News asked, “When they offered your Miranda rights, did they say you could call a lawyer?”
Daughter 2 replied, “In the Miranda rights it said I had the rights to a lawyer, but I am still a child, so I really don’t understand what the Miranda rights are for or whatever. So I thought, they just are not going to trust me if I just stay silent. They are going to take me away. So I did say stuff to them. I did talk.”
MyrtleBeachSC News asked, “Did you say anything that would have incriminated you?”
Daughter 2 responded, “no.“
MyrtleBeachSC News asked, “Was there any concrete proof that you or student 1 had written anything on the wall?“
Daughter 2 replied, “No, they have nothing, beside that I own a sharpie that was in my book bag.”
We asked Daughter 2 what the school determined. Said Daughter 2, “There is no determination. I am out of school suspended until our hearing on October 4th. I am no longer in a classroom. I am not allowed on school grounds.“
Daughter 2 added, “I didn’t even know why they had me waiting there for 4 hours. I was all by myself stuck on a bench. The one time I tried to stand up I got yelled at by the Principal (Toggas), which triggered the asthma attack.”
The school administration believes one of the daughters we spoke with, (Daughter 2), wrote the statement.
Said Daughter 1 concerning the threatening statement, “So basically, we took a picture of it. and I tried to send it to make the public aware of it, but it didn’t send, though, because there was like bad internet at the school. I was trying to show awareness of it, like guys this has to stop.”
She added, “They were like, if you don’t admit to it, we are going to get police involved and you are going to have criminal charges.”
We asked if either had been through a basic civics class. Each responded no.
According to a recent report by citizensandscholars.org: Only seven states require a full year of civics instruction in high school; 13 states have “no requirement at all.” The federal government spends $50 per student on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education each year, but only five cents per student on civics, down 90 percent since 2000.
The most basic civics class would have informed these 13 year old students of their legal rights.
St. James Middle School has a broad and fuzzy policy that students can not share any information on social media that might disrupt the school or a classroom.
We presented the language to a local lawyer (and state legislator) who said he doubted the language would hold up in court as the code is too broad and violates a student’s free speech rights.
While a student can not post violent acts on social media, like an orchestrated school fight, the school does not have the implied right to censor information shared on social media, we were told.
We asked the students if anyone in the schools had ever told them about their rights to free speech. The girls stated no.
Because schools, like St. James, put limited investments in teaching civics, students are graduating not knowing what rights the government has versus the rights of the individual.
Student 1 said they forced us into admitting to posting the statement on snap chat, even though she did not post it on snap chat. We asked her why she would admit to something she did not do. Student 2 stated, “They said we were going to have criminal charges on us if we didn’t [admit to posting the statement on snap chat], and we would be in like some serious big trouble if we didn’t.”
We asked, “Did you feel a lot of pressure to write that statement?” Student 1 said yes.
PARENTS THE LAST TO BE NOTIFIED
We asked the parents if they considered their children, problem children?
Said Kylie Weber, “I would not. I mean my daughter is not perfect by any means… I believe in my heart that they did not have anything to do with this.”
Said Jennifer Florian, “I feel the same way as Ms. Kylie.”
We asked Kylie Weber, “How did you get notified that your child was being detained?”
Said Weber, “I got notified by a phone call at 2:30 p.m. The assistant principal called me on the phone and told me there was a situation that happened at 10:30 a.m. and that they were investigating it. I asked them what the situation was. They said they found a threat on the wall that said there was going to be a school shooting. And I said, Did my daughter write it? And she said I can’t tell you no, she didn’t, but I can’t tell you yes. And I said, Do you think she did it? and she said, I would get an attorney.”
Said Weber, “If they would have called me at 10:30 a.m. I would have been there at 10:35 a.m. I only live 5 minutes from the school.”
We asked if the police were called before Ms. Weber was brought on the school campus. Weber told us yes.
We asked if the police had already interrogated her child before she was called. Weber said yes.
MyrtleBeachSC News asked if Weber believed she should have been in the presence with her child when the child was interrogated. She responded, “Absolutely, and I think we should have had the right to have an attorney.”
We asked, “Do you believe your parental rights were violated by the school?” Weber responded, “absolutely”.
MyrtleBeachSC News asked Jennifer Florian how she and her husband Michael were notified. Said Florian, “We were actually not notified by the school. I received through the power school app a notice that my daughter had been marked absent for social studies class. This was about somewhere around noon, if not shortly before noon.”
Added Florian, “I called her guidance counselor to see if she was in her presence. She said no, but let me figure this out for you and I will call you back. I received a phone call back from her stating that she (daughter 2) was with administration, but she did not know what was going on, but someone from administration would call me.”
Said Florian, “We waited for over an hour, about an hour and a half, heard nothing. So I called this same guidance counselor back again to let her know I still hadn’t heard anything. I said I want to know what’s going on. Again she said, someone will call you. We waited about another 20 minutes to 30 minutes. There was no call. At that point, my husband, who is my daughter’s father had had enough. And he just left and went to the school.”
“He had to go up to the desk and say my name is [Michael] and my daughter is [daughter 2]. We’ve been calling. We don’t know what’s going on. I want to know what’s happening with my daughter. And then he quickly got ushered into one of the assistant principal’s offices, where they then talked to him…. They didn’t at that point actually tell him that they were implicating [daughter 2] in actually writing the threat on the wall.”
Added Florian, “She had been out of class since 10:30 a.m. in the morning. Police had spoken to her. Administration had spoken to her. And not once did they call [us] and once again my husband was on paternity leave so we were both home, both had our phones. They did not call either one of us to let us know what was going on.”
Said Florian, “I think as parents we should have been notified immediately, especially with the severity of what the incident was. They are 13 year’s old. So you are going to read Miranda rights to 13 year olds and expect them to fully understand what their rights are? As parents, we should have been involved so that we could advocate for our child and say no. We are calling a lawyer. You are not speaking to anyone without representation.”
Florian stated, “We had a meeting at the school on Thursday. We demanded to see the camera footage. We sat and watched the whole half hour segment of camera footage they had.”
Florian said she brought up to administration that none of the girls in the video had a purse or book bags. And when she asked her daughter about it, Daughter 2 told her mom the bookbag was in the classroom. Her daughter was escorted by a school resource officer back to the classroom to get her book bag and then escorted to whichever room they brought them into to start questioning and searching.
Said Florian, “They are trying to say she did it, but the markers were in her book bag, not even in her possession.”
We asked Florian if there was anything on camera that showed daughter 2 writing the threatening statement. She responded no. We asked if St. James had any evidence, any camera footage that proved Daughter 2 wrote the statement on the wall. She responded no and said that was even brought up by her husband at the meeting. He asked the school if another student may have said she saw his daughter writing this and St. James told him no.
One of the three black sharpie markers daughter 2 owned matched the same black thicknesses of the marks on the wall. However, once again, the sharpies were in Daughter 2’s back pack in the classroom and not in her possession.
According to public records the student population of St. James Middle School is 916 and the school serves 6th through 8th graders. According to Sharpie, 150 million Sharpies are sold every single year, and Black Sharpies are the most common.
We asked Florian if all 916 students were checked for the same color and thickness of sharpie. She said no.
To date, the children have not been criminally charged. Student 1 is back in school. A meeting will be held this week to decide if student 2 will be able to return to school. Student 2 has missed 6 days of classes as of Sunday, October 1st despite no arrests nor any produced evidence to date that Student 2 wrote the message on the school wall.