As schools face a widespread surge in violent threats, districts have rushed to respond through parent meetings, local press appearances, and videos of students urging their peers to be careful what they post online.
Administrators and law enforcement officials said they are concerned that a flood of vague and false threats may cause students to be less vigilant about reporting troubling messages and make it more difficult for authorities to identify legitimate safety concerns. Students who’ve been reported—some as young as elementary school age—may not understand the legal and practical consequences of making unsubstantiated threats, even as jokes, they said.
“The more that this continues, my fear is that we become a fraction less responsive,” Austin Superintendent Matias Segura said in a Sept. 20 press conference alongside leaders from six other central Texas districts.
While school threats often increase at the beginning of the school year, districts around the country have seen an unusually dramatic and highly disruptive spike in reports of potential bombings and shootings since two students and two teachers were killed in a Sept. 4 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga.
That surge can be attributed to a combination of factors, school violence experts told Education Week: copycat threats that often follow high-profile attacks, increased vigilance among students and the public, social media trends, and—possibly—international actors seeking to sow chaos.
There’s no national data on the uptick, but anecdotal reports demonstrate the severity. An anonymous threat reporting system operated by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit school violence prevention organization, has seen the number of average daily calls triple in the last two weeks, said Crystal Garrant, its chief program officer.
The 220,000-student Hillsborough County, Fla., district has fielded 260 reports through the state’s anonymous reporting system since Sept. 4, compared to 275 reports for the whole 2023-24 school year, said John Newman, the district’s chief of security and emergency management. Those have included a variety of types of reports: specific threats targeted at school administrators, vague messages on social media, and conversations overheard in school hallways, he said.
“When [students] are pressing those buttons on their cellphones, they don’t know that there’s an audience for it, and that we pay attention to it,” Newman said. “We take every threat seriously, no matter what.”
Districts, law enforcement share information, look for trends
Local news reports show some trends in threat reports. In one, a similar image of guns appears alongside a list of local schools that changes depending on the community.
Hillsborough County schools reviewed one report of a social media post that showed an image of a gun, which was later traced back to an unrelated account in Texas alongside this message: “I heard there’s going to be a shooting at” a list of schools in the district, Newman said.
“Sadly, once these types of things get on social media, they take on an energy and life of their own,” he said.
Officials in Prince George’s County, Md., schools worked with the FBI to track a similar social media post back to a user in Kansas City, Mo., news station WTOP reported. That post disrupted schools when local students, acting sincerely out of concern for their safety, reshared it before it was eventually reported to authorities.
Sadly, once these types of things get on social media, they take on an energy and life of their own.
“The same template, the same picture and then a lot of times what they’ll do is they’ll just change the names of the schools,” Brendan Devaney, the commander of the the Homeland Security Intelligence Unit with Prince George’s County Police, told WTOP.
Some schools—including those in Oklahoma and Ohio—have also reported threats that were traced back to international phone numbers.
Spokespersons from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions from Education Week about whether the agencies are tracking the threats on a national level or probing their origins. Representatives from Snapchat and TikTok, two apps frequently mentioned in threat reports, did not respond to emailed questions.
Education and law enforcement officials have increased communication and collaboration in recent years, which has made it easier to detect trends, Newman said.
In Florida, county school safety directors meet monthly and regularly share intelligence under requirements created following the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Newman also communicates with a local fusion center, part of a federal network of hubs that allow state, local, and federal officials to share security information.
Schools encourage student reporting, discourage false threats
Schools dealing with disruption from threats must meet a twofold communications challenge: discourage students from making false threats while encouraging them to report concerning information to adults at school or through anonymous reporting systems.
Federal analyses have consistently found that school shooters “leak” their intentions, sharing or hinting at plans before they attack. Over the last two decades, schools have increasingly stressed the importance of reporting possible shooting plans, and they’ve developed more sophisticated systems for doing so.
“It’s important to remind our children that they don’t have to face these threats alone and there is help available,” Amanda Toohey, a counselor for Austin schools, said at the district’s press conference.
Austin, like many other districts, has recently incurred unbudgeted, overtime pay for its district police officers investigating every tip, district officials said. And officers are concerned students aren’t aware they could face criminal consequences for threats, said Travis County District Attorney José Garza, whose office is responding to 30 pending cases related to school threats made this year.
Texas districts partnered to host the news conference in part to encourage parents to speak to their children about their online behavior.
In Florida, Hillsborough County administrators enlisted students to make a public service announcement video, warning their peers to “think of your future.”
Polk County, Fla., Sheriff Grady Judd held a news conference to warn parents that his office would seek restitution from students charged with school threats to cover the costs of investigations and responses.
“So buyer beware,” he said at a Sept. 19 news conference.
Schools communicate with parents about how they investigate and respond to threats
Schools must develop clear criteria about how they will review threats, how they will respond to credible concerns, and when a threat would provoke a school closure or other safety measures, like heightened law enforcement presence, safety consultant Kenneth Trump said.
With a high volume of reports, schools should clearly delineate their criteria and how they apply it consistently so they can explain why a school that was closed for a threat last week remains open another week, Trump said.
District administrators, who are still developing new school year norms with families, rushed to communicate those plans with families startled by news reports about threats.
Law enforcement and school officials met with parents at a Buckeye, Ariz., elementary school Sept. 17 to answer their questions face-to-face, Fox 10 Phoenix reported.
“We are doing everything with our law enforcement partners and school district staff to ensure the children are as safe as they can possibly be,” Michael Todd, the president of the Litchfield Elementary School District Board, said at that meeting.
