Child actress, 8, seeks school transfer after death threat
Her mom says the threat was scrawled on a wall inside John Hancock School in Morrell Park just before classes ended in June.
SAMANTHA COLEMAN should be getting her daughter ready to go back to school for the start of third grade with her peers. Instead, the Northeast Philadelphia mom is scrambling to figure out how she can homeschool her 8-year-old for the upcoming year.
That's because, according to Coleman, her daughter, Shayne, a successful child actress, was the subject of a threat scrawled on a wall inside John Hancock School just before classes ended in June. The message stated, "I will kill Shayne Coleman - murder," according to Coleman, who was alerted to the message by the principal.
"This happened on a Friday and I sent police to the school the following Monday," Samantha Coleman said. "They found the kid who did it. The child admitted it."
After officials found the alleged perpetrator - a girl in Shayne's second-grade class - Coleman asked to have the girl transferred out of Hancock, on Morrell Avenue near Crown in Morrell Park, but the district said no. According to the district's code of conduct, the punishment for "threatening students or staff with aggravated assault" ranges from out-of-school suspension to disciplinary school assignment.
Coleman said she also was denied a request to transfer her daughter, an honor-roll student, to nearby Fitzpatrick. According to Coleman, Assistant Superintendent Dion Betts said last week that Shayne couldn't be transferred unless she had been assaulted. Coleman said her daughter is afraid to return to the school.
"She just went to the doctor and he said she has [post-traumatic stress disorder] from this whole situation and she needs to see a counselor and talk to somebody because she's clearly having anxiety over it," Coleman said.
District spokesman Fernando Gallard said officials reviewed the case in consultation with the principal and decided that the best option was to implement a support-services plan for Shayne.
"We're talking about young kids here, and unfortunately sometimes kids write things on the wall that they don't fully comprehend," Gallard said. "The school has done a full evaluation of what occurred and now feel that they can have the child at the school and support her in order to have a successful school year."
Gallard could not say what the support plan entailed.
Coleman said the school's principal told the family on Friday they would do all they could to make Shayne feel safe, but couldn't guarantee she would not have contact with the other student in the lunchroom or other common areas. Coleman said the girl also has threatened to harm other students for associating with her daughter.
Shayne, a child actress who has appeared in TV shows with Phylicia Rashad and Kevin Bacon, told the Daily News she is afraid the girl could come up behind her in the hallway.
"I'm scared that she could just turn up behind me somehow and kill me," she said in a telephone interview.
Yesterday afternoon, Karyn Lynch, chief of student support services, contacted the family after the People Paper inquired about the incident, Coleman said. Lynch was sympathetic and vowed to try to resolve the situation, she said. Still, given school shootings in recent years, Coleman said she isn't satisfied that her daughter will be safe.
"I'm not taking a chance with my child's life," she said. "They cannot ensure her safety. This just isn't fair."
