Only around a third of students attended classes on September 19, 2014, after principal Bill Atterberry emailed parents alerting of a possible terrorist threat. Atterberry wrote in his September 18 email: "This afternoon, we received a call from an upset parent who said that he was 'coming down tomorrow and it’s going to be like a Columbine situation.'" The parent, Orlando Johnson, clarified that he wanted to know why his 14-year-old son had missed 30 days of school and told "The Record" that his exact question to school staff was: "Would you want the school to be like a Columbine, I get a phone call that my kid is dead?"