In the days since a deadly shooting at a Florida high school, local school officials and police have spent countless hours investigating reported threats at their own schools.
But in each case, the threats have been determined to not be credible.
At Center Grove Middle School North, police and school officials have continued to hear rumors and rumblings about the same incident that was investigated more than a week ago. And at Franklin schools, two recent reports have been investigated from students who posted what they believed to be a joke on social media, but others saw as a threat, school officials said.
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Now, school officials and police are pleading with students and families to be more cautious about what they post online and to understand the serious consequences they can face — including arrest and expulsion — for perceived threats.
School officials said they understand families are on high alert after the school shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida, but they also already have taken multiple steps to protect students, from secure entrances to hundreds of cameras inside schools. And they need the help of students and parents to stop the spread of false information and inappropriate social media posts that lead to hours of work by school officials and police.
“Kids don’t have the ability to think it all the way through,” Franklin Schools Superintendent David Clendening said.
“We take these things seriously. You might think it’s funny, we’re taking it as a threat.”
ASKING PARENTS FOR HELP
Both Franklin schools and Center Grove schools sent a letter to parents this week, asking for their help addressing continuing issues they have been facing.
At Center Grove Middle School North, a report was investigated more than a week ago about a potential threat that was determined to be untrue, but the information has continued circulating. Recently, police also investigated a report of a social media post, which they found was a student with a toy gun that had been posted months ago. Investigators have determined that the recent reports all relate back to a case from earlier this month, involving graffiti in a bathroom at the school and rumored comments made by a student that police found did not happen, the letter from Center Grove Police Chief Ray Jackson said.
According to the letter, no threats have been made toward students, no gangs exist at the middle school and no weapons have been brought to the school or were threatened to be brought to school, the letter said.
“Perpetuating these rumors is only causing more fear in our community. It is also hurtful to those who have been wrongly accused,” the letter said.
One way students and parents can help: stop posting rumors and concerns on social media, Center Grove Schools Superintendent Rich Arkanoff said.
“Posting something on Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, it doesn’t resolve the problem, it makes it worse and it scares people,” he said.
And when those posts are made, school officials and the Center Grove Police Department have to spend their time looking into them, he said.
“It consumes the police department’s resources, it consumes administrators’ time. That’s the frustrating thing, they’re spending time chasing rumors down,” Arkanoff said.
The same has been true for Franklin schools, where police and school officials have spent hours investigating reported threats that students thought were jokes.
“It’s not funny. It takes a lot of time and resources to vet those,” Franklin Police Chief Tim O’Sullivan said.
The reports they have investigated include pictures students have shared and commented about on social media, Clendening said.
School officials and police always find out, Clendening and O’Sullivan said. And from there, students could face serious consequences, which could include a felony criminal charge, and discipline from the school district — even expulsion, they said.
“Don’t jeopardize your education over something that’s never going to go away,” O’Sullivan said.
Each of those reports also takes up a significant amount of police and school officials’ time, they said.
If a report is made during the school day, school officials immediately bring in the students involved in making the report or who are believed to be involved to get all the information they need. Their immediate concern is to make sure the building is safe, Clendening said.
But they also talk to the student to try to determine if there is something going on at school that led them to make the threat, he said. That could be part of what school officials consider when determining the discipline a student should face, he said.
Parents and police are both called, and police will take any action from the criminal side, he said.
If a report comes in after school, police are immediately notified and detectives are sent to find the student who made the threat. Their goal is to first make sure the student does not have access to weapons, but will also look into any issues with mental illness and past threats, O’Sullivan said.
Their goal is to quickly determine whether there is a threat and then get back with the school district to make any decisions about whether school should be closed, he said.
What will happen criminally depends on the threat, O’Sullivan said. If it involves specific people and a detailed plan, the student could face a felony charge of intimidation, he said.
SAFETY A PRIORITY
School officials and police both said they understand why parents are concerned after the school shooting in Florida, and they know that is the topic of conversation at dinner tables all over the county. But they also want families to know that safety has always been a priority.
That’s why Center Grove has more than 500 cameras in its schools, along with its own police department with four officers and a police dog, Arkanoff said.
All schools have secured entrances, which were upgraded in recent years, multiple staff members are trained in security and safety and the school district has an anonymous reporting system so students can report any concerns they have at any time, he said. The school district also works with multiple other agencies, such as Adult and Child Mental Health, the county’s emergency preparedness group and the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, he said.
“Sadly, in our world today, there is just a lot of things we have to guard against,” Arkanoff said.
Every Franklin school building has secure entrances, an upgrade made after the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
And Franklin schools will soon have a full-time school resource officer from the Franklin Police Department, and the goal is to continue to expand that program in the future, officials said. And that officer will carry a school radio, allowing him or her to easily communicate with the school.
Police can easily watch videos from inside and outside the schools by school officials sharing surveillance video. That was recently used when a 19-year-old came to the high school property with a gun and planned to hurt himself. But police had to be sure he had not gone into the school, officials said.
Officers also conduct training inside the schools, they said.
A total of 25 staff members, from teachers to support staff and administrators, have gone through school safety specialist training to learn how to respond to multiple issues, from bullying to fire drills and an active shooter, assistant superintendent Jeff Sewell said. State law requires one person to be trained, he said.
And that relationship will continue between police and schools, sharing resources and information, officials said.
If something happens at one of the schools, officers can be there in minutes, and have trained to do just that, O’Sullivan said.
“Safety is paramount,” O’Sullivan said.
“It takes a lot of resources to ensure safety, and that will continue.”
