CFHS principal talks about shooting, stabbing incident

Carolina Forest High School principal Velna Allen said there is not a lot she can say about the stabbing and shooting incident that happened at the school Friday. Allen said she was instructed by the police not to talk about the incident that left student Trevor Varinecz, 16 dead and sent School Resource Officer Marcus Rhodes to the hospital with stab wounds. Authorities said Rhodes shot Varinecz in self defense.

Principal Allen said one of the assistant principals discovered what happened Friday and the school went into an immediate lockdown.

Allen said since then, she and the district’s administrative team put a lot of time into thinking about what's going to happen Monday when students and faculty return. “We've got counselors coming in, we're afraid we would need additional counseling, so in addition to my staff we've got a team coming from the district office, we're going to have a counseling center set up here in the main office. We are going to have a two-man team go to each of the young man's classes, we felt like his classmates, you know it may really hit them tomorrow if they're in school and realize he's not there and so we want to be prepared for that and make sure that they're okay and have a chance to talk about you know anything they want to talk about. We've got counseling staff for teachers, one of the things we did, of course I walked the perimeter of the school, not that that I felt like I needed to but it just made me feel better to walk around and see for myself that everything looks normal, there's been no breach of security this weekend and the alarms are still on and working, everything looks normal.”

Allen said she really couldn’t’ say a lot about Varinecz, who she said was never in her office. “He's a very soft spoken, or was a very soft spoken, polite young man, I’ve never had a problem with him personally, always seemed like a nice guy.”

Allen said Rhodes, who she has not spoken with since the incident, also at the request of authorities, was the school’s resource officer for quite a few years. “My experience with him is he cares about children, pretty much what you've probably already seen, he goes the extra mile, he coordinates the “Freezin for a Reason”, the polar plunge for the children, he loves children and he's a good SRO."

Allen said students and parents will notice a difference when they arrive Monday morning. “We're going to have additional staff, i'm going to shift us to more of the key entry points, not because I think we need to from a security standpoint, but I think it's important that parents realize that we took it serious and we're here and I think they need to see us first thing when they get here."

Allen also said she has not had a chance to speak directly to all the parents, but wants them to know she and her staff work to make sure their children are safe. “Nobody can guarantee your child is safe, no matter where you go, in church, you know at McDonald's, in a restaurant, we can't, there are no guarantees in life. I want them to realize that we do everything we can to keep their children safe and I was very proud of our children on Friday, we were in a difficult situation, it was probably uncomfortable for most of them, for the duration of the day, but they rose to the occasion and they were awesome and I just hope our parents realize that we will always do everything we can to give them a quality education and at the same time try to keep them safe.”