Last week, following the shooting that killed four people at a Georgia high school, schools across metro Phoenix saw a wave of threats.
Officials said much of it stemmed from a Snapchat post, and none of them were found to be credible.
Schools alerted parents and some students, and raised the alarm that law enforcement were looking into the threats and that they had been made. Many parents kept their kids home as a precaution.
So, when does a school send out that kind of shockwave into the community? What is their protocol when they receive a threat? Jason Yeager, director of safety operations at Dysart Unified School District in the West Valley, joined The Show to talk about it.
Conversation highlights
JASON YEAGER: Typically it's just to try to find the source. Try to figure out if the reporter that sent it to us knows who sent it. If they saw it through a third-party social media, something like that. Because our immediate desire is just to try to figure out the validity of it and the quickest way to figure out if it's true or not is to determine who it was that that posted it. So that's, that's step one.
So before you inform anyone or, you know, talk to law enforcement, you're going to kind of look at who posted it, who sent it to you and try to track it down. Do you get a ton of these? Is that why it's not like an immediate level-100 reaction?
YEAGER: You know, I wouldn't say we get a ton. They obviously come in spurts. But the reason why is that certainly when we go to law enforcement, they need a certain amount of information as well. And so being former law enforcement, knowing that they're going to need some level of information in order to start their investigation, we have to start to try to give them at least half of the five Ws, right? In order for them to know where they're going to go with it. Typically they circle back to us and see what ways we can help with our resources. But also we know our students and our community ... better, certainly our students better than they would. So it helps for us to be able to give them that background.
How do you assess at that level what threat to take seriously and what one is a joke — that a person might get in trouble for, but certainly isn't going to raise the level of awareness that you need to take it to law enforcement?
YEAGER: Well, I mean, we put them all on the same pathway. So we have just our internal investigations through our administrators and then through our safety team. But then we also have our threat-assessment processes, and there's a long version and a short version of that. And it kind of depends on what information comes out to which way we go. And so kind of alluding to what you mentioned, some of them are just, you know, kids saying things that they really shouldn't say or didn't understand the gravity of it, versus something that we think might need some extra attention. And so that initial kind of assessment of that statement, or whatever it is that we're reading or what have you, is what kind of drives that.
You said that these threats kind of come in spurts. Was it surprising to you at all that there were a lot of threats on social media last week against many, many schools throughout the Valley following this very high-profile school shooting that happened in Georgia?
YEAGER: You know, I think the timing was, I guess, disappointing is the right word. We did receive threats like this in previous years. Typically they surround like the end of the year, when kids are trying to get out of testing or other things. ... I think the fact that these arose after a real scenario just made it a little bit more urgent on our part to make sure that we got it right. And so I, I would say that last weeks were probably more stressful than they've been in the past, but they're not unexpected.
So talk a little bit about how you communicate something like this. How do you inform parents and teachers and the community? Do you tell kids?
YEAGER: So yeah, I mean, there's a hierarchy of the information channel and so forth ...Our official communication channels are ... the email, the phone, the text messages. When we send something out on those channels, our parents have an understanding that that's going to be the most accurate information that we have at this time. And so we try to make sure that we're factual; we try to make sure that we're timely and that we're being transparent. But at the same token, these are still being investigated. So typically what we'll say is, you know, we know these have come out, we've either looped in law enforcement or, you know, maybe the investigation has already been complete at this point. It kind of depends on how long it takes. But our first priority is just to make sure that our kids are safe. And so once we know that at least we're in a position to where that has occurred, then we go ahead and put out the messaging: "Yes, we're aware of this. This is where we're at." And then, you know, obviously try to provide updates as required. But it is tricky on kind of balancing, you know, when is the appropriate time? How much information do we have? And you know, what information are we ready to put out?
Do you inform students at the same time or — especially at the elementary level — do you really not want to tell them?
YEAGER: You know, we, we did high schools this last time because that's where the majority of the reports were coming in from. So I think we take that case by case. To your point, there is a level of understanding or ability to have that information sink in at those different age levels. But we take that case by case. Certainly, if it was something that came through like in a third or a fifth grade, and we still have those discussions. Rspecially if it's a discussion that needs to be had of, "Hey, let us do our work. You're safe right now. You know, we're talking to your parents." there's still room for age-appropriate discussions, but we certainly drive those based on the target audience.
