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By: Beth Brelje | August 27, 2024

If you see something, say something, admonishes the modern-day motto of school safety. That’s why an eighth-grade student in the Upper Adams School District in Pennsylvania told her teacher when she noticed a threatening message written on her desk in pencil shortly after taking her seat.

“Gun,” it said, with an arrow pointing to the word, “Dead,” plus the words, “I will bomb this school.” That was Feb. 6, 2023, when she was 13.

The Federalist is withholding her name because she is a minor.

Now 15, she is supposed to be entering tenth grade, but the school blames her for the graffiti and has now, a year and a half later, decided to suspend her and start the process of expelling her from the small, rural school in the core of Pennsylvania’s apple orchard region.

And while no one is saying it is connected, her mother’s involvement in the Moms for Liberty lawsuit that is attempting to stop President Joe Biden’s Title IX rule allowing men in women’s school sports, creates some troubling timelines when dovetailed with the school’s reaction to the desk incident.

The suspension means the student is not allowed to step foot on school grounds and is banned from tennis practice, which started in late summer.

That is what hurts the most. She has been playing tennis on her backyard court, coached by her dad, since she was young, and she has developed into a skilled player. She previously earned the title of county champion, and this summer she worked her first job, teaching tennis to children.

Missing her sophomore tennis season could be devastating to her college prospects.

She denies writing on the desk. She couldn’t have, because some of the message was written in cursive and, other than her name, she cannot read or write in cursive. The school stopped teaching cursive handwriting; it was never offered to her class.

The desk incident happened around the same time her mother, Tricia Plank, a member of Moms for Liberty, announced she was running for a seat on the school board. She was elected and joined the board in December 2023.

The student’s father, Phillip Plank, is a teacher in a neighboring school district.

The Investigation

After the student reported the scrawling on her desk, teacher Robyn Swatsburg reported it to Principal Shane Brewer, who ultimately involved the Pennsylvania State Police.

Police called the family in to question the student the day after she reported the writing on the desk. The family was shocked to learn she was a suspect.

A state police allegation document describes the investigation.

Three students use the desk in three periods throughout the day. The reporting student is the last to use the desk.

The school principal and vice principal briefly questioned the two earlier students who used the desk but not the third, reporting student. The school has never questioned her, the family told The Federalist. 

Using surveillance video, the principals and police pieced together a timeline described in the allegation.

The first student left the desk at 9:28 a.m., and the next student arrived two minutes later, at 9:30, and stayed at the desk until 11:01 a.m.

Both students told the principals there was no graffiti on the desk.

The third student told The Federalist her class always stopped in the classroom to leave their books and folders on their desks before heading to lunch. This is not reflected in the police timeline, but it is worth noting that anyone could tell where a student would be sitting by looking at the name on the books sitting on desks while students were at lunch.   

The teacher, who no longer works at this school district, was alone in the room for 32 minutes, from 11:01-11:36 a.m., except for three minutes while she was in the bathroom, according to the allegation.  

The reporting student arrived at 11:36 a.m., and the allegation says she reported the graffiti seven minutes later.

“I didn’t realize that it was on my desk until the teacher was done talking, and she told us to clear our desks. And then once I moved my binders and stuff, then I saw it, and then I raised my hand and I told her,” The student told The Federalist.

In that short time, police make the implausible allegation that a student with no prior discipline problems and does not know how to write in cursive wrote a threatening message on her own desk, in cursive, and then made the decision to report herself. The teacher, who was in the room the entire time, did not report seeing the student write on the desk.

State police told the school to preserve the desk as evidence and get handwriting samples from some students. They did not get a handwriting sample from the teacher.

The family was shown a photograph of the desktop while at the police barracks. But when Trisha Plank went to take a picture, she says police quickly pulled the photo away.

The family’s attorney, Paul B. Royer, has requested the photo of the desktop. Neither the school nor the police have provided the photo yet.

Things calmed down for the rest of eighth grade and they thought the incident was behind them.

The student was later entrusted by the principal to mentor younger students entering junior high school, taking them on school tours and teaching them how to switch classrooms. And the principal chose her to join Rachel’s Challenge, a school safety program that aims to eliminate school violence by spreading kindness.

The student completed eighth grade, went on to high school and became a star player on the tennis team. She also ran track and field, earned awards, and got a letter from Superintendent Wesley Doll complimenting her athletic ability.

Doll did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

“Coincidental Timing”

The Plank family is mentioned in the Moms for Liberty lawsuit challenging President Joe Biden’s Title IX final rule that makes it discriminatory to speak against men claiming to be women from competing on women’s sports teams.

“Ms. Plank’s children attend schools where transgender students are also enrolled. Ms. Plank and her two children believe that biology and God determine an individual’s sex and that an individual cannot change his or her sex,” the court filing reads. “Presently, Ms. Plank’s children express views about gender identity and transgenderism while in school. To date, they have received scrutiny from teachers and administration but have not received any reprimands or been disciplined for their speech.”

Additionally, the lawsuit reads, a neighboring school’s girls tennis team has a male coach who dresses as a woman and has changed his clothes in the girls’ locker room in front of the other girls in the past. The family would have to stop expressing their views about a man using female restrooms and locker rooms. Their free speech would be chilled if the rule is enacted, the case argues.

The case was filed May 14.

A week later, the desk case was alive again. On May 20, the state police filed an allegation over the desk matter, pulling the student into the juvenile justice system with pending charges of terroristic threats and institutional vandalism.

The handwriting analysis, taken months ago, came back from the state police crime lab and found the student who reported the graffiti, “is capable of having produced this text,” the allegation reads.

Police brought the case to the Adams County assistant district attorney, who instructed them to file charges.

June 24, still summer vacation, the principal called to tell the family the school is moving forward with suspension and expulsion, 72 weeks after the student reported the desk graffiti.

Her mother asked to meet with Superintendent Doll to persuade him not to suspend her daughter in the middle of tennis season. He agreed to pause the suspension pending the resolution of the state police charges, and he would let her participate in tennis.   

Aug. 1, there was a contentious school board policy meeting with discussion over providing sexualized books in the school library. The superintendent and Trisha Plank attended the meeting; the two hold opposite views.

The next day, Aug. 2, the school’s attorney contacted Royer. Doll changed his mind, he said. The student is now suspended from tennis, and the school is moving forward with the expulsion process.

The Plank family is troubled by the “coincidental timing,” they told The Federalist.

There is another wrinkle. The student’s sister faces similar charges from police and the school for an unrelated graffiti incident that happened four days earlier, on Feb. 2, 2023. The girl, who was 11 at the time, was in a school bathroom with several other girls. Someone wrote a bomb threat on the wall in marker. No one saw who did it or when it happened. The state police crime lab conducted handwriting analysis in this case too.

“My clients look forward to defending themselves and letting both the juvenile justice system and school disciplinary procedure play out,” Royer told The Federalist. “The evidence will show that these kids never threatened anyone, were never a threat, are not currently threats, and if the powers-that-be genuinely thought that these kids were threats, they shouldn’t have waited fifteen months to file charges.”

But until the Plank family gets resolution from the school board and the police, there remain many unanswered questions.

If the school would have a transparent conversation, perhaps it could explain if there is a statute of limitations on alleged crimes. Why are they delivering punishment in tenth grade for something that happened in eighth grade?

Why does the superintendent, who vigorously disagrees with the student’s mother on many school board issues, have any role in punishing the student?

It is incredible that the state police crime lab used taxpayer dollars to conduct handwriting analysis on at least six students for this case. Given that handwriting analysis is not always accepted in court; that writing graffiti-style cursive on a hard desk is different than writing on paper; and that the student does not know how to write cursive; do they have any stronger proof that it was this student?

Does the punishment fit the alleged crime?

Or does the school’s reaction strike fear in students, that if they see a threat, they should not speak up and report it, so they don’t end up accused, expelled, and marked by the juvenile justice system?

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.