School officials are encouraged to take all threats seriously

By Del Stover

2/22/05 -- When two third-grade boys at Wyomina Park Elementary School in Ocala, Fla., drew pictures of a classmate being stabbed and hanged, they found that adults didn’t appreciate their artwork: In fact, the students were arrested on a felony charge and escorted out of the school in handcuffs.

That was a hard-nosed response to scraps of paper with simple stick figures drawn in pencil and red crayon. But, because the artwork identified the target, police say students broke the law. In Florida, it’s a second-degree felony to make a written threat to kill or harm another person.

“If something had happened and we did not [act], then everybody would be saying ‘why didn’t you do anything?’” Ocala Police Sgt. Russ Kern told the local newspaper. “We don’t have the luxury of saying this is just child’s play.”

That last remark sums up the feeling of school officials and law enforcement agencies nationwide. In the aftermath of the Columbine shootings and other school tragedies, responding quickly and firmly to threats made by students is seen as an absolute necessity.

The good news is that, for the most part, the nation’s schools are better prepared than ever to respond to such threats, says Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm.

“Schools have done a better job of training educators, administrators, and law enforcement to treat threats seriously,” he says. “School administrators also have worked on changing the school culture . . . to encourage students to report incidents and get them to understand that it’s not snitching but maybe saving lives.”

For local school boards, the challenge today is building on this progress and ensuring that staff training, policies, and procedures are ready for the challenges ahead.

Every week, schools somewhere are confronted with hit lists, murder plots, bomb threats, or rumors about a weapon in school. This reality hit home in Guilford County, N.C., when a threatening note was found on a teacher’s desk in November. News of the threat inspired a spate of copycat threats over the next few days.

The majority of these threats were made by “good kids making bad decisions,” says Superintendent Terry Grier. But all were investigated with the help of police. Nearly all of the students responsible were caught and disciplined.

Planning is everything

That school officials resolved this matter so quickly and efficiently -- with no serious disruption in classroom learning -- can be attributed to threat-assessment protocols developed to guide school administrators through a crisis, Grier says.

From the beginning, principals at the threatened schools knew to contact their district supervisor to begin the process of assessing the actual risk of these threats, he says. As facts warranted, a decision was made to call the police or turn over the investigation to a team of administrators, counselors, and teachers.

Although most district officials contact the police immediately in the case of a bomb threat or other serious sign of danger, having a “threat-assessment team” available to analyze the credibility and risks of a threat should be standard practice, Trump says.

In analyzing past acts of school violence, Trump says, it’s often the case that various teachers, counselors, school resource officers, and parents hold a “piece of the puzzle” about a student’s state of mind, past behavior, relationship with peers, and access to weapons.

“You want different individuals involved, so you can get a clearer look at the big picture,” he says. “You need to pull all of that information together so you have a better feel of what you’re dealing with.”

That’s the approach school officials in Omaha, Neb., rely on: Each school has a threat-assessment team to analyze each threat, using protocols developed with advice from the U.S. Department of Education and Secret Service.

When a bomb threat is reported, for example, school officials immediately call the police bomb squad, says Roddie Miller, the district’s project administrator for school safety. Meanwhile, teachers make a quick search of their classrooms.

Schools are evacuated only if school officials and police think the threat is credible, he says. Otherwise, the school is put into a “lockdown mode.” This reduces the danger of students walking through an unsearched area and discourages students from making more threats designed to close schools early.

In responding to a threat, school safety experts say the first and foremost rule is that student and staff safety is paramount. After that, although law enforcement and security organizations have developed helpful guidelines, the devil is in the details.

For example, a threat issued by a student with a prior conviction for weapons possession should be taken far more seriously than a threat voiced by a young child. A hit list, complete with maps or plans, should spark far more alarm than an angry “I’ll kill you” screamed at the end of a hallway fistfight.

“You look at a number of things: the context in which the threat was made, the student’s past history [if his or her identity is known], and the detail and specificity of the threat,” Trump says.

Get the facts

The biggest fear of school officials is that they will misread the situation -- or uncover the truth too late. That tragedy occurred at Seattle’s Roosevelt High School in 2003, when employees heard a rumor of threats on the life of a student. Before an investigation could determine who issued the threat -- or who the target was -- a school athlete was killed.

That Seattle school officials had a hint that something was amiss underscores an important fact: Studies of school shootings reveal that, in most instances, one or more people had information that the attacker was thinking about or planning violence.

That means officials should talk to a student’s friends, family, and classmates to assess the credibility of a threat. And students should be educated about the need to speak up before talk of violence leads to tragedy.

What’s sometimes unclear for school officials is when -- or whether -- they should make threats public. Although security experts agree that anyone identified as the target of an attack has a right to know about the threat, it’s less clear what information should be shared with the rest of the school community.

In Guilford County, officials responded to their first threatening letter -- that suggested an attack later that week -- by almost immediately telephoning parents with the news. As a result, some parents drove straight to school and pulled their children out of class.

School officials certainly didn’t enjoy the negative publicity but as Grier says, the decision made sense. Not only did students and teachers have a right to know of the threat, but “the minute you notify the police, the press knows.”

When a threat is not credible and no specific targets have been identified, some school officials say they’ve kept the matter under wraps while an investigation was conducted.

But if news leaks out -- and rumors can begin as soon as students are questioned -- school officials can find themselves facing criticism. In California’s Temecula Valley Unified School District, some parents were incensed that a threat written on a restroom wall -- promising an attack later that week -- was not reported to students or their parents.

According to district spokesperson Danielle Clark, the threat was not immediately shared with parents because the threat didn’t target any specific students, and school officials decided “this was a prank, a hoax . . . where students were trying to get out of school early.”

Crime and punishment

When two seventh-grade girls at Noblesville (Ind.) Middle School wrote an alleged hit list of students and teachers they didn’t like, school officials in this Indianapolis suburb took firm action: The girls were suspended from school, pending possible expulsion, and ordered to undergo counseling. “We take all threats seriously,” says Mark Booth, the district’s director of students services.

But some school officials say they prefer a disciplinary approach that allows more discretion than the rigid rules used for weapons possession. Not all threats are equal -- and some children are more foolhardy than dangerous.

In Guilford County, the specifics of an incident -- including such factors as the student’s age, the seriousness of the threat, and the disruption caused -- all play into the school district’s disciplinary actions.

For serious offenses, the district’s response can range from “an in-school suspension, a short-term suspicion, a long-term suspicion, or assignment to an alternative school,” Grier says. “It depends.”

The dangers of rigid disciplinary rules can be seen in the arrests of the third-graders, ages 9 and 10, in Ocala, Fla. Under a policy that took effect last year, school officials were required to report suspicious events to police. And the police department had a policy stating that anyone arrested for a felony must be handcuffed.

The arrests sparked national publicity, and school and police offices were deluged with complaints that officials had overreacted.

Setting aside their age, the fact that these students faced criminal prosecution is by no means unusual. In Port Orchard, Wash., one student who threatened to “kill everyone” was charged with felony harassment. Because of a history of violence and firearms possession, the student was sentenced to a year in a state institution.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Chuck Lind, who coordinates the King County school violence program, says many first-time offenders are sent before a special community panel that can put students on probation, order counseling, or impose community service.

In Omaha, school officials also are paying attention to what happens when punished students are ready to return to school. Some consideration has to be given to the target of a threat, Daniels says, and for the safety and sense of security of other students.