Sophomore Mushtakh Mohammed said she, along with family members, felt threatened by recent international islamophobic threat and will take precautions in response.

“My mom told me about it, and she said, ‘you are not going outside,’” Mohammed said. “I am scared. My mom was telling everyone, ‘we are not leaving the house, and you better be careful, and if you have to go do something or go somewhere you better take pepper spray with you.’”

Flyers advertising April 3rd as “Punish a Muslim Day” were sent anonymously among various communities throughout the United Kingdom and have made their way to the US through social media, according to the New York Times.

According to sophomore Safiya Omar, the flyer promotes violence using a point system.

“I heard that white people and everyone that hates Muslims are going to attack Muslims and beat them up and get points for it. Someone is going to pay (them) I think,” Omar said. “I’ve seen flyers on Snapchat.”

Omar said she feels the islamophobic-based harassment promoted by the flyers is wrong.

“It’s not right for you to hit someone because they are Muslim or based on their religion or something. At the end of the day we are all human beings,” Omar said.

According to principal Scott Meyers, the administration planned a staff meeting after school April 2 to inform staff of the situation, as well as outline ways to provide a safe school environment.

“What we’re hoping to do is just to give some information and surround students with people who know something about it and are watching for it to ensure that it doesn’t happen here. I think one of the strongest layers of support teachers can give is to just to know and be watchful of it and that goes for any type of bullying or harassment,” Meyers said.

Meyers said students have reached out to the administration regarding their safety.

“I talked to two students, both Muslim, female students, who said, ‘we want to make sure we feel safe tomorrow,’ and so, I shared some ideas of what would make (them) feel safe tomorrow, and there was a desire for some common knowledge there,” Meyers said.

Senior Stephanie Garcia said after seeing the posters on Twitter, she worried for the safety of those around her.

“I was actually very concerned because I have Muslim friends, and I was like that shouldn’t be happening and also like it shouldn’t be happening at all,” Garcia said.

According to Meyers, the administration’s first step to ensuring the safety of students was to check that posters advertising the game were not posted in the halls.

“Starting the day today, coming back from spring break, our student office staff walked through the building to check hallways, making sure there were no visible signs here. That was our first layer of checking,” Meyers said. “Then I gave our superintendent an update this morning just to say, ‘hey, I know you’re aware of this. I just wanted to share with you that thankfully we haven’t seen any signs left.’”

Meyers said while no further safety measures will be taken Tuesday, the staff in the student office has increased preparation for dangerous situations in light of recent events.

“Our student office has had numerous safety meetings since some of the events that happened in Florida and so we have been talking about that. They won’t necessarily be in response to this particular scenario, but this is one scenario that we’ll discuss as a group,” Meyers said.

Garcia said she thinks dialogue surrounding the issue would prove beneficial for the safety of students.

“I feel like we should make this more aware because I don’t think a lot of people know, so the more you talk about it and bring awareness to it, the more people can be careful,” Garcia said.

Meyers said he believes the values of the students at Park give reason to believe the school is safe.  

“We are a building full of human beings, and human beings make choices in the spur of the moment,” Meyers said. “My hope is, and it’s a very strong hope, is that our building, the majority of the time, is a safe place where things like this do not catch wind. I have a lot of faith in the humanity of our students and that’s what we have to rely on to stay safe.”