Large portion of MSD students absent Wednesday

Nearly one-sixth of Moscow School District students were absent from school Wednesday — the day Michael Mastro, 26, allegedly said he was going to “shoot up” two Moscow schools in a YouTube comment in late March.

MSD Superintendent Greg Bailey said on a typical school day approximately 70 to 90 students may be absent from school, but on Wednesday that number jumped to 379.

Leading up to Wednesday, there was some concern about how the threat would actually affect the school day, and it clearly had a significant effect on attendance, Bailey said.

The threat kept some students on edge.

Ben Ramalingan, a sophomore at Moscow High School, said his parents gave him the option to attend school.

Ramalingan said he had decided to go to school, knowing if he felt uncomfortable at any time throughout the day, all he had to do was call his parents, and they would pick him up.

At lunch, Isabella Farnham, a junior at MHS, said she was not particularly scared about going to school because she had seen on Facebook Mastro was taken into custody Wednesday morning on suspicion of a second threat he had made to a Coeur d’Alene collection agency Tuesday.

“I am more scared of when (he is released) and is not being watched,” she said.

Fellow junior, Taylor Lee Wyatt, also made the decision to attend school on Wednesday, but she said she was still scared.

She said her parents were particularly concerned for her younger siblings in the school district.

“My younger brother didn’t want to go to school,” she said

Jack Killen, a sophomore at MHS, said he felt comfortable going to school Wednesday because he has seen the Moscow Police presence on campus over the past week.

“I think the MPD is strong enough to handle threats made to the school,” Killen said.

He said since the threat was made, students and teachers have spent time discussing what it means and how students should handle threats.

In the days leading up to the date of the alleged threat, Bailey said many parents had expressed their intent to be at  the schools Wednesday.

He advised parents in an email Monday that coming to school would be disruptive to the normalcy of the day and would affect the staff and MPD’s abilities to do their jobs.

Bailey said on Wednesday, parents did a great job and dropped their children off as usual.

“Truthfully, our drop off procedures were normal, and we had a couple of parents who stopped by and thanked us,” Moscow Middle School Principal Kevin Hill said.

Katie Short can be reached at (208) 883-4633, or by email to kshort@dnews.com.