Parma City Schools receives two threats in two days

After various high-profile shooting incidents, including at an Uvalde, Texas elementary school over the last couple of months, Parma City Schools and the Parma police department weren’t taking any chances late last week when the district received two threats in as many days.

The first of which regarding an unspecified elementary school took place late last Wednesday (July 13) followed by a threat on Thursday directed toward Parma High School.

As a safety precaution, the district cancelled activities through Saturday.

“The male that made the (elementary school) threat resides in Parma,” Parma Police Department Lt. Daniel Ciryak said. “He made the threat at his place of employment in Macedonia.

“Macedonia police department notified Parma police department. Due to the serious nature of all of these things, we can’t take these things lightly so obviously we notified the Parma City School District”

The police haven’t released the name of the suspect, who wasn’t charged.

“Although we shut down (Parma High School) as a precautionary measure, the crime actually occurred in Macedonia,” Ciryak said.

As for the second threat, Ciryak said that’s still under investigation.

“We don’t take these threats lightly,” Ciryak said. “We’ll follow through with the investigations.

In light of recent events, the Parma City Schools will be holding a board of education work session on Aug. 4 to address school safety.

“Both threats came through at the worst possible time for schools, which is late at night or early in the morning,” Parma City Schools Superintendent Charles Smialek said. “You don’t have enough time to investigate and try to make sure there’s really nothing to it.

“We worked with our law enforcement partners. The Parma police department is absolutely fantastic. They’re fast-acting, responsive and communicate extremely well. In both cases, we were able to substantiate there really wasn’t any credibility to these rumors and that no one was necessarily in any danger but it takes some time to get to that point.”