LAKE STATION, Ind. - A teacher in northern Indiana is on leave after students said he scrawled a threatening message on a classroom chalkboard.

Lake Station Schools Superintendent Dan DeHaven told WLS that the district is investigating after students snapped photographs of a message written by a teacher at Edison Junior-Senior High School.

The message read in part, "A) You are idiots!!!!!!!! B) The guns are loaded!!! C) Care to try me ?????????"

DeHaven said the teacher, who has not been identified, has been a business teacher at the school for about 28 years. He said the teacher has not had any previous disciplinary issues.

Lake Station police were meeting with students Monday.

"Any kind of threat, especially a threat with a weapon or words of a weapon, may be a criminal act, and that's what we're looking at," Lake Station Police Chief Kevin Garber told WLS.

Students said the teacher wrote the message while having what they described as a "meltdown."

"On a pretty normal day, he was OK. He seems like a pretty fun teacher, outgoing, and then the time when he got mad, you knew," said student Mason Baldazo.

"I think he should get fired," said student Jocelyn Chavez. "I don't think it's professional for him to be writing that on the board for his students."

DeHaven said the teacher was not in school Monday and would not be coming back, pending an internal investigation.