A January threat scrawled on a bathroom stall at Penn High School rang hollow Friday, as many expected.

It did, however, provide a condoned excuse for roughly 1,500 students to skip school. That’s nearly half of Penn’s 3,300 students.

"It was a nice, quiet day," said Teresa Carroll, a spokeswoman for the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp. "The kids who showed up seemed happy to be there."

Back in January, school officials informed parents that a written threat was found in one of the school’s bathrooms.

The threat read: "This time it's for real, Everyone dies, April 18, 2008."

School officials found no evidence that the threat was credible and decided not to cancel school for the day. However, students were told that their absence would be excused if they choose not to attend Friday.

Carroll said she suspects Friday's sunny, 70-degree weather also had an affect on the large number of absences.

Parents were still required to call in for their child. Students can make up the work they missed.

"But you do lose a lot of instructional time with stuff like this," Carroll said. "It does have an impact."

Security at the school was beefed up for the day. There were additional police in the building and security personnel were monitoring the school’s 66 security cameras.

There were also many corporation officials greeting students and walking the halls, Carroll said. They included Superintendent Jerry Thacker and school trustees.

"The kids just kept smiling at all the adults they saw in the building," Carroll said.

The threat at Penn apparently spawned a copycat threat at Riley High School in South Bend.

School authorities were able to identify the student who was then arrested.

"He thought it would be funny to go to a restroom up at Riley High School and write a threat on one of the bathroom walls," Capt. Phil Trent of the South Bend Police told WSBT Radio. "He was subsequently arrested and admitted that the whole thing has been a hoax."