Beauregard student expelled over journal threats

Lee County, Al.

Threats written in his personal journal have resulted in a male student being expelled from Beauregard High School, the county school superintendent said Monday.

“We had a kid at Beauregard High School, who had been keeping a creative writing journal and had done it for years writing about different topics, make some threats against some students,” said Dr. Stephen Nowlin, Lee County Schools superintendent.

“When we found out about it, we suspended him until we could have an examination and have a board hearing to get more information,” he said.

Nowlin said the Lee County Board of Education expelled the Beauregard High School sophomore for a year, in an action taken earlier this week.

Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said it appeared the journal accidently fell out of the student’s pocket or backpack and was discovered by another student, who immediately turned it in to one of the teachers, who in turn contacted a school resource deputy who was at the school.

“Probably within five minutes of the discovery by the student and turning it into the teacher, the school resource deputy was involved in this,” Jones said.

The incident occurred in mid-December, Jones said.

“Our involvement with the student at school ended when he was expelled,” Jones said. “At this time, there are no charges.”

The sheriff said that whether it was a credible threat or not, they treat anything like this seriously based on recent histories of school violence.

“In this care, I think it is worthy to note that by having a school resource deputy program in place the circumstances were that literally within minutes of discovery, we already had one of our personnel involved working with the school administration, the child and parents,” Jones said.