Staff locked the exterior doors of Summit High School shortly after a performance of the school play began Nov. 9 due to a man holding a sign outside the school.

Kerstin Anderson, the Summit School District director of communications, wrote in an email to Summit Daily that the sign “caused concern among both staff and attendees.” According to a Summit County Sheriff’s Office report about the incident, the sign read “Attacker in school please help!”

Anderson wrote that a student contacted the county emergency dispatch because of the man’s sign. She stated that staff monitored exterior access points and locked exterior doors shortly after the start of the 2 p.m. performance of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, High School Edition,” but the school took no other “direct actions.”

According to the Sheriff’s Office report, a deputy responded to a report of a suspicious person at the high school just after 2 p.m. When the deputy arrived, the man had already left, but an off-duty deputy had been at the school and told the responding deputy what they had seen.

The off-duty deputy had confirmed there was no emergency in the school and checked the security cameras, seeing the man with the sign standing on school property. They told the responding officer that the man had protested with the same sign at other Summit County schools because he was upset with how the school district handled an incident involving his child at an elementary school.

School district staff told the deputies they would like the man trespassed from school district property unless he was there for a “legitimate school related purpose,” the report stated. 

Deputies contacted the man, who admitted to holding the sign at the high school but said he did not realize he had been on school property. Deputies told him about the trespass request and warned him that the verbiage on his sign could be seen as a false threat against the school. The man apologized and said he would not use the same sign again.

The deputies’ investigation determined no crime had been committed in the incident.

Anderson wrote that the man has been in contact with the district director of safety, security and transportation about the incident involving his child. She stated the district requesting a no-trespass order “aligns with our ongoing responsibility to maintain a safe, secure, and welcoming environment for all students and staff.”

“While he is not currently considered a physical threat, the messaging and timing of his signage during a student performance caused understandable concern and disrupted an otherwise positive student event,” Anderson wrote.

The school district could not comment further on the incident involving the man’s child due to federal and state privacy laws, Anderson wrote. She added that the district remains “steadfast” in its commitment to “fairness, due process, and the well-being of every student involved.”