The St. Joseph School District is short thousands in state aid after student attendance took a huge drop last week in the wake of threats made on social media toward area schools.

As we told you last week, the St. Joseph School District increased security after a parent notified the district of a social media account, “Aint Clownin Around” featuring a clown in the profile picture, which posted at least three threats against all schools.  The St. Joseph Police Department said it arrested a 27-year-old man Tuesday in connection with the investigation and that the case has been submitted to the prosecutor’s officer for consideration of charges.

Dr. Solon Haynes, Dir. of Student Service with the district said that last week from Thursday to Friday more than 1,300 students were absent from district schools.  That resulted in a monetary loss of state aid of around $27,500.

“Every day that a student attends school we receive state aid for the student being in school,” Haynes said. “Considering our budget is over $100-million dollars that is still significant but as far as the overall budget it’s just a small portion of it.”

Having an additional 1,300 students absent was a huge increase over normal. Haynes said the day prior to the incident around 535 students were reported absent.

“Overall anytime you lose money out of the instructional funds that would go to a school it does have an impact on the education of our children,” Haynes said. “So that is money that we will not receive from the state to help educate our students.”

The investigation into the case is ongoing.  As we’ve previously reported, the individual arrested may also be tied to another police investigation relating to a similar incident in another location.