A possibly perilous situation involving a county school district was handled exactly the way it should have been as the result of a collaboration between a diligent student and a program meant to keep students safe that debuted in the county in recent years.

On Monday morning, South Butler County School District superintendent David Foley announced that a "social media threat" was made over the weekend by a Knoch High School student.

The student has been visited by state police, who plan to charge the pupil with disorderly conduct. Additionally, the student has received "school discipline," according to an email sent to parents.

All of this is possible because a fellow classmate did the right thing by utilizing the Safe2Say Something system — a youth violence prevention program run by the state that has debuted in county school districts in recent years — and reporting the threat.

The classmate took a screenshot of the threat and forwarded it to Safe2Say Something.

"Their quick and decisive action, along with the Safe2Say Something system following their protocols and immediately alerting the police, may have prevented harm to our students and staff," Foley wrote in the email to parents.

We would also like to thank the student. At any age, it takes courage to step forward — regardless of whether one remains anonymous, as the Safe2Say system allows — as this student did.

As a result, the student helped keep fellow students and Knoch High School's staff safe. And we're glad to see that the Safe2Say system, about which we've written numerous times on this page, is working the way it was intended.

It deeply saddens us that violence at schools or threats of it have become so commonplace in American society. That being said, one must face such problems with resolve.

There have been a handful of threats to county schools over the past few years — and most of them have, thankfully, been found to not have advanced past the stage of posting to social media.

But every threat must be taken seriously. And the student who contacted authorities through the Safe2Say Something system did just that.

We hope this student's peers do the same any time they detect online activity that sounds like a threat. They will be able to remain anonymous, but their efforts will positively affect everyone in their school community.

— NCD