I don’t know if it is correct to describe a person as having Asperger syndrome today, but there was an incident I recall at my high school the year after I graduated (circa 2010). One of the students was very well known among the other students to have Asperger syndrome. The point of this story is that the well being of the student in question was dismissed by every school and district authority.

As the story goes, simply this teenager allegedly at random with zero provocation made a threat against a teacher. The threat in question was bomb related. Apparently this student was socializing with a group and someone believed to have heard a verbal threat uttered. Things got heated. The teacher in question was temporarily removed from classes for approximately a week following this incident. Students got upset and protested her removal (which made local televised news). A few days later the school district held a meeting (not sure if it was a regular board meeting since I recall other subjects being discussed). Many parents and students (myself included) attended. We all wanted to hear what the authorities in the district were doing to in response to the incident.

The story that got back to me (remember, I’m graduated, but still in contact with some underclass students) was that a student with a known Asperger syndrome diagnosis was in a crowd of other students, got possibly agitated and yelled someone things in response. Supposedly someone in the group claimed it was a bomb threat directed at teacher. One of the students I was friends with, said they were present and heard no such thing. No one knows precisely what a possible motive would have been to create a hoax involving a ASD student, but the hoax spread.

At the district meeting, the official stance was to do nothing and shame the public. No one seemed to care a teenager with neurodevelopmental condition was being accused of threatening the safety of a teacher. They claimed essentially it was mass hysteria (bear in mind this is how I describe it); no one made a threat nor did a hoax occur to get the student in trouble. Which seemed very weird since it was common knowledge among all the students at the meeting, that a hoax rumor had gone around. Someone said something. Whether or not this hoax was intentionally malicious is besides the point. A person on the autism spectrum was center of an alleged threat of violence on a high school campus. The district did not believe the hoax existed. On top of this, the district would not comment on the whereabouts of the teacher. They refused to acknowledge that a teacher had been absent in the days leading up to the meeting. Every student knew who it was.

Back to the point of my story: school and district authorities did not express interest in protecting the well being of a otherly-able (I hope this is a okay descriptor) student or the teacher. On top of this they didn’t seem to care about the safety of other students. There were parents voicing concerns over a hoax bomb threat. Shouldn’t someone at least look into the credibility of a threat of violence, even if it was teenagers misunderstanding what another teenager said?

I have no insight to how the ASD student (again, I hope that is the corrrct label here) was dealing with the situation or their parents/guardians.