Teacher in Staunton charged for bomb threats

By Cleve Wiese

Published: May 21, 2008

Campus crime committed by teachers is rare. But bomb threats made by teachers – such as the notes allegedly planted around Shelburne Middle School in February by a special education instructor – are almost unheard of, experts say.
Although there are no specific statistics available, Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International and author of 20 books on school safety, said he could only remember two such incidents in the last 30 years.
“It’s highly unusual,” Dorn said Wednesday. “More commonly, when we see teachers arrested for something relating to school, it’s been an allegation – and not always founded – of their losing their temper and physically attacking a student. But those are rare, too.”
Heidi Marie Dorn, 34, a speech pathologist in the special education department at Shelburne Middle School, appeared Wednesday in Staunton General District Court via a teleconferencing system on charges she made bomb threats at the school. Dorn has provided her own legal representation, and is being held without bond in the Middle River Regional Jail, a court clerk said.
The woman left five threatening notes, some typed and some handwritten, at different locations in the school Feb. 21, 22 and 25, said Staunton Police Officer Aaron D. McFarlane, Shelburne’s school resource officer. Dorn faces three felony charges of threatening to bomb and four felony charges of threatening to do bodily injury.
Heidi Dorn reported finding one of the threatening notes herself, in a staff bathroom in the school’s eighth-grade hall, Staunton Police Officer Lisa Klein said. That typed note purported to be from a disturbed student and included an explicit bomb threat and a threat to shoot teachers, Klein said.
The wording of the notes immediately raised suspicions about the age of their author, Staunton City Schools Superintendent Steven Nichols said.
“Based on my 35-plus years of experience, I felt the notes had not been written by a youngster,” Nichols said. “At that time, I did not know what adult, but I did not believe it was a student at the school.”
School administration officials noticed no previous signs of trouble with Dorn, who seemed like a “typical employee,” Nichols said. All teachers in the district undergo a rigorous vetting process, including an in-depth background check, before they are hired, Nichols said.
Michael Dorn said his organization encourages schools to be particularly cautious while screening new employees, but problems can arise no matter what precautions are taken.
“Sometimes, because of the nature of human behavior, you get caught completely out of the blue,” he said.
The threats created a host of financial and logistical concerns for the school district, Nichols said. The atmosphere of danger and uncertainty in the days after the notes were discovered led many parents to keep their children home from school, he said, and some teachers refused to come to work. The credibility of school administrators was also damaged, he said, as community demand for information ran up against the legal barriers imposed by an active investigation.
“I had to redirect staff, we lost a lot of instruction time, there were absences, not to mention the stress and emotional toll,” Nichols said. “There was a cost to this thing, most assuredly.”
Heidi Dorn likely will be suspended pending the outcome of the case, which is standard procedure when teachers are charged with a crime, Nichols said. She had already resigned from her position at Shelburne to take a job at a different school, he said. May 30 was scheduled to be her final day.
Substitute teachers will be covering Dorn’s classes until a replacement is found, Nichols said.
“As educators, we take keeping kids safe very seriously, and when something like this happens, particularly with one of our own, it is hurtful to all of us,” Nichols said. “It’s a very difficult time right now, but we will see this through and persevere.”