Two Basehor-Linwood High School students were charged Tuesday in Leavenworth County juvenile court with aggravated criminal threat in connection with a bomb threat three weeks ago at their school.

The female students — a freshman and a sophomore — also have been suspended from school until November 2004, according to school officials.

The discipline and charges stem from a written bomb threat found Nov. 11 on the floor of a hallway at the school.

According to Don Swartz, executive director of business and facilities for the district, the handwritten note said, “This school shall blow up at 1:31 p.m. today, November 11, 2003.”

School officials evacuated the building, and for about three hours the 500 students in the four-year school sat on bleachers at the Bulldogs’ nearby football field.

Though three students originally were detained, officials determined the third student was not involved with making the threat, Swartz said.

The two students immediately were placed on a 10-day suspension from school, he said. After a disciplinary hearing conducted by a three-member board, the girls were suspended from BLHS.

“The bottom line is that they’ll be able to come back the corresponding date next year,” Swartz said. “It’s just the length of days of one complete school year.”

It’s doubtful another school will allow the students to enroll, he said, and, of course, their immediate future will depend on what occurs in the legal system.

“Another school could choose to let them in, if they wanted to,” Swartz said. “The bottom line is another school is going to uphold the expulsion or suspension from another school.”

The students can appeal their suspension.

“Anyone who is being brought forward for a hearing can always appeal to the school board,” Supt. Jill Hackett said.

They have 10 days to appeal after they receive written notification of their suspension.

Criminal charges were filed Tuesday, according to Todd Thompson in the Leavenworth County Attorney’s Office.

— Tonganoxie Mirror editor and publisher Caroline Trowbridge can be reached

at (913) 845-2222.