Why A School Told Students Four of Their Peers Were Dead...When They Weren't

Just after the morning Pledge of Allegiance last week, students at Brodhead High School received a startling announcement.

Four of their classmates had been killed in a car crash involving texting and driving.

Student Sam Bolen said he texted his mother as did many other students.

"A lot of our fellow friends and students actually started crying," Brodhead student Madison Trombley told NBC 15 News, which first reported the incident.

The person making the announcement waited 10 minutes, then said that the previous message had actually been part of a drill about safe driving techniques.

There had not been a car crash.

The four students were not dead after all.

According to NBC 15, the "deceased" students who participated in the drill were told not to use their phones to reply to classmates.

Questions about whether the school crossed a line to get its safe-driving message out have divided its students and the community. Bolen and his mother said they have received intense backlash since he gave an interview to NBC 15 last week.

"There's been a parent that said, 'If you have a child who's offended by this, you are raising a weak, drama-filled child,'" Bolen said this week. "It is kind of uncomfortable when you know that teachers are even talking bad about students who are upset."

Brodhead School District Superintendent Leonard Lueck told The Post in an email that the drill was intended to bring awareness to teen driving safety but acknowledged "problems with this activity due to communication issues that occurred."

"While we stand by the worthiness of the activity, we recognize the flaws with how it was communicated," Lueck wrote. "We will evaluate the value of this activity and either make changes to how it is communicated or not do the activity again."

Lueck added that the district formally apologized to parents and students "for any undue stress this activity may have caused."

What some classmates found bizarre was that the fake death announcements continued through the day. In the second hour, it was the school principal who came on to tell the student body that four other classmates had "died."

And then, during the school's official morning announcements that day - akin to a student-run newscast - two classmates delivered this:

"These are your morning announcements. Currently today it is the 26th. There have been a series of wrecks and multiple reckless driving things happening currently around Brodhead. We've currently lost a handful of fellow students, and we're going to show you some images of their lives now. We'd like you to give them a moment of silence."

For about a minute, photos of several Brodhead students flashed on the screen against a haunting piano and violin tune.

"Today make sure you take a moment and think about all your loved ones as those were pretty sad moments there," the student broadcasters said in their sign-off. "As well as drive safe ... have a good day."

Finally, after a rundown of the day's cafeteria menu and a volleyball team fundraiser, two adults appeared on screen in the same video to give an "update" about four other students who had been "T-boned by a drunk driver."

Somberly, one recited the names of the students who had been "killed."

By then, most of the student body knew the announcements were not real, and the "dead" students were still at school, dressed in black.

"You just kind of became numb to it," Bolen said. "They just kept doing it. It just didn't really make sense."

At the end of the day, Bolen said, there was an assembly where the school's principal called out students who were upset.

"He yelled that 'if anyone has a problem about it, their parents can call me tomorrow,'" Bolen said. "He was very standoffish about it."