3 Students (2 of them MINE) Attempted to Burn Down Ravenna High School Today

Mazuko · Jan 25, 2005, 07:03 PM

I am a teacher at Ravenna High School in Muskegon Country Michigan in the City of Ravenna. Typically we are an ordinary country school with a farm right across the street.

Well today was an interesting day at school. 3 Students (1 boy, 2 girls), two of which I have in class, tried to burn down the school today.

Around 1PM EST the students took toilet paper and wrapped it around the sink faucets and handles, trailed it to toiler paper dispensers, and lit it on fire. The fire took to the paper and it traveled up and caught a large plastic toilet paper dispenser on fire. The smoke was so thick it was hard to breath, let alone see.

The 2 girls attempted to do the same thing in the girls bathroom but it didn't take.

All 3 students were caught immediately when a friend (also a student in one of my classes) of theirs walked in on them doing it and reported them. She was told by the 3 that they wanted to do it but didn't believe they would actually follow through with it.

No one was injured, and I believe school will resume tomorrow. Two bathrooms are closed for now and there is a substantial amount of smoke damage in the 200 and 300 halls. (There is 4 halls, 100-400, in the building).

The reason that my students did this?

Because they hated school, and wanted to be expelled.

The above story was written by me, below is the news story from the WZZM 13 news van that came after everything was taken care of.

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=35771

Dark Lord · Jan 25, 2005, 07:15 PM

crazy muskegonites..... i guess trying to burn down the school is better then blowing it up with all the bomb threats we had at FHN about 5 years ago. i think there was a bomb threat about once a week for awhile. odd how i missed that incident on the news last night too. must be channel 8 didnt have anything on it.

Mazuko · Jan 25, 2005, 07:16 PM

It happened today around 1PM.

Dark Lord · Jan 25, 2005, 07:21 PM

ahh, no wonder i didnt hear about it yet. probably be on the news this evening

Zelig · Jan 25, 2005, 07:26 PM

I've had people light a fire in a garbage can in a bathroom a school I went too...
It's just stupid when people do stuff like this though, without thinking about how they could hurt others.

Senor_Mota · Jan 25, 2005, 07:30 PM

I wrote a fake "Hit-List" in High School with all my friends names on it and planned it by leaving it in my math class. It got blown WAY out of proportion and the Resource Officer treated my like I was a damn felon. The look the Principal and the Vice-Principal had on their faces when my friends told them they didn't feel threatened(we didn't tell them it was a joke) was PRICELESS. I got "slapped on the wrist" and got suspended for five days. See, you don't need to commit arson to have a little fun.

Sargentwhitey · Jan 25, 2005, 07:48 PM

Buncha crazies... why would anyone hate school that much??.. It boggles the mind.

e v o · Jan 25, 2005, 08:03 PM

hectic, not much more i can say, it coulda been a lot worse though, glad the school is still intact

Ben

**dj_stick** · Jan 25, 2005, 10:01 PM

crazy

BAdD0gg · Jan 25, 2005, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sargentwhitey

Buncha crazies... why would anyone hate school that much??.. It boggles the mind.

Have you ever been? j/k

Seriously though I remember when I was goin to highschool I had to be there at 6:00am When that alarm went off in the morning, arson was the least damaging thing that I thought about doing. At 4:30am a tactical nuclear strike often came accross my mind. I never did anything though. The sporting good stores in cali have very limited selection when it came to warheads. SIGH..... SO GOES LIFE

TJ- · Jan 25, 2005, 11:55 PM

they must be pretty syupid thinking you can burn down a school by lighting toilet paper on fire, and in a toilet of all places, those tiles must be pretty flammablle. jeez, some people are really dumb, if your gunna burn down a school everyone knows you start in the library...

Judas · Jan 26, 2005, 12:20 AM

actually, depending on the school.. and my understanding is that it was a smaller school (underfunded and usually out of date with the latest and greatest)

although i'm not sure what small is, i thought my school was large with grades K-12 totallying about 250 students.

400 halls? (mansion? )

i could probably burn down a school like that easily. BTW, a tightly packed paper towel role burns longer and hotter then some people think... Cinder blocks turn to flaky weak powder at relatively low heats (the kind of cinder blocks used in generally buildings not prone to start fire let alone get very far)

Although what they did was stupid..... it also proves that they were somewhat using the heads in the construction of the mess.... Most true idiots just try to leave a burning waud in the toilet or something (sad)

were they suspended? considering the fact that they wanted to be suspended would suggest that they should be charged with lareson (spelling) and should do full communitty work within the school itself (can we say Janitor Duty? )

imo, suspending does nothing, nor does "write out so many lines of - I will not start fires in the bathroom with the intention to get suspended"... Being that i recently came out of school, with teachers and super attendants breathing down my back ignoring the real problem and taking everything out on generally me because of my own habits of not being a robot like the rest usually. Today, i'd have to say 1 out of 10 students barely cares about school, or being suspended. The rest simply want to be suspended as going home to "mommy and dadddy" results in them being allowed to play thier games, go out to a movie, or do whatever the hell they want.

Sorry for the rant, but I've real concerns for the way things are being handled in north america....

Judas · Jan 26, 2005, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by battleaxe187

if your gunna burn down a school everyone knows you start in the library...

actually, that isn't exactly the greatest place either. Libraries are usually very well fire protected, you so much as light a cigarette and the sprinklers can be so sensitive that they emediately go off, also, if you did happen to start one in thier without that happening, it'd be extremely rare you'd get very fair without someone noticing it as the smoke/heat would be quite alot. Not to mention the fact that if you get caught, and really, if they wanted to investigate it, you'll get caught.... you would have a fee to pay so massive, it might or most likely make further education not even a option let alone retirement...

I don't like fire starters.... it accomplishes nothing.

Dark Lord · Jan 26, 2005, 12:36 AM

some idiot at my school tried setting the carpet on fire about 3 years ago. he held a lighter to the newly installed carpet for about 2 min, all he accomplished was melting a little bit of carpet and burning his hand. apparently he didnt know that all the new carpet was fire retardant, and that holding a whimpy lighter to it wont accomplish anything.

Razgriz · Jan 26, 2005, 12:41 AM

my school ranges from grades 9-12 and has 2600 students