Well, it's nice to know the zero-tolerance policies apply to everybody in school:
A 42-year-old first-grade teacher at Washington-Reid Elementary School wrote a note claiming there was a bomb in the building, Prince William County police said Tuesday. The note was intended as a practical joke, police said, but Elizabeth Schuette, of Montclair, was charged with threatening to bomb.
The teacher was caught on video leaving the note near the school's front entrance Monday, said Detective Dennis Mangan and schools Superintendent Edward Kelly.
The note said: "There's a bomb in the school today," according to police.
Police said the note was left for another teacher, who was expected to be the next person in the door. Instead, it was found by a school employee about 7 a.m., and buses were diverted to John Pattie Elementary School. Everyone in Washington-Reid was evacuated.
The teacher is now on "administrative leave"; despite the videos, she has not yet been found guilty of anything. The administrators also allege that Shuette was one of the best teachers in school, which leaves me to ponder a few things:
(1) How good a teacher could she be, when she doesn't understand just how dumb it is to place a phony bomb threat as a "joke"?
(2) How bad must the other teachers in school be, when they are presumably less capable than she?
(3) What should we conclude about that "other teacher" for whom the note was intended? Was that other person the kind of teacher who would find a situation like Columbine hilarious, for example?
(4) What evidence, exactly, is the school waiting on in order to fire Shuette? An admission of ill-intent? Corroborating evidence? She was caught on video, for heaven's sakes (yet more evidence of her lack of "higher-order thinking skills).