School district releases annual violence report
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

MILLSTONE — Assistant Superinten-dent Mary Ann Donahue presented the annual district report on violence and vandalism at the Oct. 10 Board of Education meeting.

The report covered incidents that took place during the 2004-05 school year up to and including June 30.

According to Donahue, the incidents in the report consisted of one middle school student who brought a small amount of alcohol to school and another who verbally threatened to hurt a fellow student, as well as two middle-schoolers who brought nonprescription medication to school.

The report states that only one of the reported incidents involved notifying the N.J. State Police, though no complaint was filed.

All four students listed in the report were students in regular education classes, not special education. The victim of the verbal threat was also a regular education student.

The report did not include two acts of vandalism that took place during the summer.

On June 28, vandals broke the glass on every construction vehicle at the site of the new middle school on Baird Road. The report did not include this incident because it was not discovered and reported until after June 30, the date the state reporting system shut down, according to Donahue.

When asked how the district levels of violence/vandalism compare with those of other schools having a similar socioeconomic profile, Donahue replied, “These reports are generated by individual school districts. There is no comparison completed.”

Donahue said the school district took each incident “very seriously.” Every student named in the report was suspended from school for a certain period of time and also referred for counseling, according to Donahue. She said that was all the public information she could provide at this time.