True or false: Outgoing Anoka-Hennepin schools Superintendent Roger Giroux got himself awarded a 9 percent pay raise all at once as a hedge against district voters turning down a tax levy request. True or false: District high schools planned an observance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights by declaring a day of silence during which no one would be allowed to talk.

True or false: Champlin Park High School plans to require its students to wear uniforms.

The answer to all of the above -- actual rumors that have circulated in the Anoka-Hennepin district at one time or another -- is "false." That comes courtesy of Anoka-Hennepin's rumor-busting online site, called Rumor Alert! The site, which archives years of rumors that have come in to the district's online "backpack e-mail" service, continues to chronicle the scuttlebutt that runs rampant in district schools and across back-yard fences, and which district officials feel needs official clarification.

Rumor Alert! started about six years ago as an idea that district communications and public relations director Mary Olson borrowed from another district and as rumors swirled around predicted massive district budget cuts shortly after a failed referendum.

"It was because we always heard a lot of rumors related to levies and bonds," Olson said. "Now, we're hearing a lot of rumors relating to our facilities task force, which is looking at facility use in relation to declining enrollment. They will be making recommendations to the [school] board about closing schools ... As many as two or three years ago we began to hear rumors from various schools [such as], 'We hear our school is going to close in two or three years,' or 'We hear our school is on the cut list.' We try to address all those things that people are hearing in the community."

Rumor Alert! gets much of its material from principals, who are alerted to pass along whatever rumors might be circulating in their schools for a thorough vetting. That's not the only source, though.

"Sometimes, people will just call me and say, 'My neighbor just told me such and such,'" Olson said.

A recent perusal of Rumor Alert! found the following rumors, some of which date back several years but are kept up on the site just to make sure the air remains cleared: As a result of "globalization," Anoka-Hennepin high schools will no longer teach U.S. history. Anoka-Hennepin will annex the neighboring St. Francis School District. Anoka-Hennepin refuses to close its schools due to bad weather because of the state money it will lose. All of those are false.

Still, rumors sometimes appear on Rumor Alert! that spring from at least a grain of truth.

For instance, a 2006 rumor about food poisoning at Champlin Park, in Brooklyn Park, led to a Rumor Alert! response that 234 students at the school had come down with a stomach illness, although "there is no reason to believe the illness was the result of food poisoning related to food served in the school cafeteria."

Lately, though, things have kind of slowed down on the old Rumor Alert! and for no apparent reason.

Said Olson: "We haven't had a lot of rumors recently."

Norman Draper • 612-673-4547