Newfane Central School District is currently investigating the origin of a forged letter that was circulated amongst its high school students last week.
The letter, which was made to look like an official school district communication, falsely claimed the school calendar was being expanded from 180 days to 200 days of student attendance and that the school day would be extended by 90 minutes. The letter erroneously claimed these changes were “effective immediately” since the district was “academically lagging behind” in comparison to other schools.
“With confidence we know that this is a completely fake letter with no accuracy whatsoever,” Superintendent Lisa Krueger said.
The letter was first brought to the district’s attention on Dec. 1 after it was posted and subsequently was shared amongst district high school students through the photo-based mobile messaging app Snapchat.
While posts and messages on the app expire 24 hours after they are first published, Krueger said the letter and the misinformation it contained spread quickly to a large number of students and parents throughout the district.
“As you can imagine, when the fake letter went out, it spread like wildfire amongst the high school students,” she said. “We not only wanted to correct the misinformation, but also get to the bottom of how it started.”
Krueger declined to elaborate on any additional specifics about the letter’s origin.
“(The district has) a good sense of where it originated from…but we’re not yet done investigating it and are still putting the pieces together,” she said.
Krueger encouraged parents who have questions or information regarding the letter to call their school’s principal or the superintendent’s office, 716-778-6850.