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School Threats, School Violence Rumors and School Threat Assessment

One of the most lasting lessons and legacies of the 1999 attack on Columbine High School, and subsequent school shootings from that time to the present, is that school and public safety officials must treat threats seriously and have protocols in place for assessing and managing threats to school safety.

School threat assessment is a gray area and administrators often find themselves walking a tightrope. Nine out of 10 threats may turn out to be unfounded, but no school administrator wants to be number 10. 

Three common questions considered to begin assessing school threats could include:

1. What is the motivation of the threat maker and credibility of the threat?
2. Could the threat maker have the information on how to carry out the threat (such as information on how to make bombs or homemade weapons, for example)?
3. Could the threat maker have access to the tools, and the capability,  to carry out the threat?

Today, we know the answers to questions two and three could easily be, "Yes."  Information on how to carry out many threats is as accessible as a few strokes on a keyboard to search the Internet.  The tools to carry out the threat can be as close as the local hardware, discount or other home supply store.

So educators and safety officials are often left focusing on the first question:  What is the motivation of the threat maker and credibility of the threat?  Unfortunately, this requires assessing human behavior and making a judgment call accordingly, which is not an easy task for even the most skilled criminologist, psychologist, psychiatrist or other student of human behavior.

The Importance of Making Cognitive, not Emotional, Responses to Threats

It is very understandable for school officials to be tempted to make emotional decisions when faced with a threat to the safety of their children.  However, it is at this time that cognitive, analytical decision-making must take over, not emotional decisions.

While school administrators may be emotionally tempted to quickly evacuate a school or close down schools, this may not be the most appropriate action, especially if the credibility of the threat is in question.  Although we do not believe schools need "paralysis-by-analysis" guiding their decision-making process, we do believe that threat assessment protocols should be in place for a joint evaluation of the threats by school officials working cooperatively with law enforcement and other public safety officials. 

Following school emergency guidelines for managing bomb threats and other threats is critical for reducing the risks of school officials making emotional decisions.  Emergency guidelines help school leaders make cognitive decisions focused on the facts of the actual threat at hand.  Such plans should be developed through a collaborative process with first responders and community partners, exercised at a minimum through tabletop exercises, and staff trained accordingly.

In addition to school emergency/crisis plans, schools should develop separate crisis communications plans for getting out accurate information in a timely manner to parents, the media, and the broader community when rumors and threats occur.  Given the viral nature of text messaging, schools do not have the luxury of trying to devise a way to get their communications out when the incident occurs.  School leaders should discuss these types of situations and have a crisis communications plan in place well ahead of an actual incident.

Increased School Threats, Text Messaging Violence Rumors and School Closings

School Safety Recommendations for Managing Threats, School Rumors and Fear

School Threat Assessment:  Predicting Student and Youth Behavior

The good news is that school and police officials are getting much better at preventing high-profile tragedies. The bad news is that we will never be 100% successful because we are dealing with human behavior.

Adult behavior is difficult to predict and no one can do it with 100% certainty. Youth behavior is even more difficult to predict. Adolescent behavior is, by its nature, experimental and fluctuating. Therefore, predictability of youth behavior is even more difficult than that of adults.

In reviewing high-profile school shootings, we have made a number of observations including that:

1. Adults tend to recognize radical, dramatic changes in youth behavior. However, adults continue to have difficulty in recognizing smaller, incremental changes in youth behavior.
    
2. Early intervention to prevent violent incidents is complicated further because so many people have pieces of information about a child, but the pieces rarely are put together to get the whole picture until after a crisis occurs.
    
3. The majority of high-profile school violence offenses do not occur spontaneously. To the contrary, most involved some type of prior planning. Additionally, they typically stem from the culmination of a series of deteriorating events experienced by the offender. The resulting violence often reflects an "end of road" action by the offender.

School Threat Assessment and Threat Management Basic Principles

National School Safety and Security Services' staff have over 25 years of experience in addressing student and adult threats in school settings and we spend a period of time addressing these issues in-depth in our school safety, security, and crisis preparedness training programs.

What should I do if I find a "hit list" in a student's possession? How should we deal with the kid who tells others plans to kill other students and staff? How should we confront a situation when a kid says, "I'll kill you," to another student or staff? 

While each school district and school should have its own threat assessment teams and school threat protocols, some basic guiding principals include:

1. Treat all threats seriously.
2. Investigate the incident promptly and efficiently.
3. Use support staff and external resources as a part of a multidisciplinary threat assessment team to evaluate threats.
4. Take appropriate disciplinary and criminal enforcement steps.
5. Document the threats and actions taken.
6. Enhance security measures, as appropriate, to insure the safety of all students, staff, and facilities.

It is important for school personnel to establish a threat assessment protocol to insure consistency and thoroughness in evaluating and responding to student and adult-originated threats. We believe that threat assessment involves analyzing the behavior process of the person making the threat, rather than using a "profile" checklist of specific characteristics as criteria.

A variety of questions focusing on the motivation, context, and other factors of the threat must be asked in each threat case.

We therefore recommend that educators know:

• What questions should be asked of witnesses? Victims? Suspects?
• Who should be involved in the assessment process?
• What questions should be asked in the assessment process?
• Which teachers and staff are in the best positions to detect early warning indicators of such threats?

Many experts are quick to point out that acts of violence, such as bombings, have occurred in our society without any threat or warning at all.  The presence of a threat does not guarantee violence, nor does the absence of a threat guarantee that nothing will occur.

Very generally speaking, the general rule of thumb when assessing credibility of threat has focused on the detail and specificity of the threat, and the behavioral actions toward planning and carrying out the threat.  The more detailed and specific the threat, the more credibility is often given.  The more evidence of planning (hit lists, maps, specific times and locations documented, etc.) and action steps to carry out the threat (stockpiling of weapons, creation of suicide notes or videos, etc.), the more credibility given to the threat. 

Assessing school-based threats is different from investigating threats against foreign dignitaries or providing government protection details in that, unlike most law enforcement or military-type threat assessments, in schools we are dealing with kids. The key is striking a balance between avoiding the "kids will be kids" mentality of ignoring threats on one end of the continuum, and having teams of secret agents with dark glasses and trench coats following kids around on the other end of the continuum of responses. Schools are unique and there are school-specific recommendations for answering these and related questions.

School Psychological Perspective on School Closing Due to Threats and Rumors

Dr. Scott Poland, Associate Professor at the Center for Psychological Studies at Nova University, and an internationally recognized expert in school violence and school psychology, has expressed concern about the closing of schools too quickly during times of vague threats and rumors.  Dr. Poland notes that it is widely known that K-12 school students often are unsupervised and/or less supervised when at home during the workday than if they were in school.  He has also written about the importance of continuity of the educational process for maintaining "normalcy" for children.

Dr. Poland was quoted in an April 2008 Chicago Tribune story about the closing of schools in the Chicago area as saying that schools should close as a last resort.  The Tribune reported that Dr. Poland, "...advocated instead increased security, meetings to put students on alert and ongoing threat assessments." 

Dr. Poland was quoted as saying:  "We shouldn't close schools every time there is a threat of violence.  In fact, in most instances, say of a bomb threat or something, you deal with the issue but then return to the operation of the school."

Additional thoughts provided by Dr. Poland to National School Safety and Security Services include:

     "We need to remember that many threats of violence at school are made with the intent of disrupting education. The number of threats at schools often increases in the spring due to awareness of the anniversary of Columbine and other high profile tragedies. Students who have been bullied or harassed at school and who have experienced an unsuccessful school year may be especially frustrated and angry by the spring.

      No one can provide a definite answer as to whether or not to close school because of threats of violence.  Each school situation will be unique but it is important to remember that the purpose of most threats is disruption.  Many schools have developed careful policies and procedures after years of bomb threats that have minimized lost academic time.

      School safety is an “inside job” and it is important to have all students involved in their own safety through classroom discussions and student participation on school safety task forces. There is also no substitute for knowing students and knowing them well. School personnel are encouraged to develop positive relationships with all students and if a threat is made the increased visibility of school staff and police at school will go along way to alleviate both student and parent concerns about school safety."

We respect Dr. Poland's wealth of expertise and knowledge in the school psychology field and school violence.  His advice reinforces the importance of schools having threat assessment protocols in place and having advance discussions among school and public safety officials as to how they will respond if they face threats and rumors of school violence.
 

Additional School Threat Assessment Resources

Check out Ken Trump's October 2001 article in the American Association of School Administrator's The School Administrator magazine on Assessing and Managing Student Threats.

See a 2008 related story on school threats and cell phones in USA Today.

Also visit our page on Early Warning Signs of Youth Violence for related information.

For more information on this topic and, school safety training and emergency preparedness services, email Ken Trump.