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Monday, February 2, 2015

February 2015 Message from the Superintendent

Dealing with Social Media as the “Vehicle of Choice” for School Threats

On Monday, January 5 CUSD staff and students returned from Winter Break, refreshed and ready to learn. By 9 am, however, this upbeat mood was replaced by worry and confusion as word spread of a threat posted on Instagram that referenced Carlsbad High School. As the credibility of the threat was being assessed, the school went into lockdown, and was dismissed early as the investigation ensued. Students, parents, and staff members were concerned and unsettled.

Working side-by-side with the Carlsbad Police Department, who was assisted by county and federal law enforcement, CHS administrators helped narrow the search for the student who posted the message, and an arrest was made within 48 hours.

Experts report that social media and electronic messaging are the latest “vehicle of choice” for the delivery of school threats. Parents and students often learn of these threats before school officials, which makes them all the more difficult to deal with. While nine of out every ten threats made on school campuses are a “hoax” no school in America wants to be #10.

Every time a potentially dangerous situation such as this occurs, CUSD’s leadership team analyzes our response, learns from it, and shares what we’ve learned with staff and the community so that we can continue to strengthen our emergency procedures.

When a threat of this caliber is received on a CUSD campus, the principal connects immediately with the Carlsbad Police Department. Three universal questions are used to assess the threat:
1)    What is the nature of the threat (what, when and where is it proposed to occur)
2)    What is the credibility level of the threat?
3)    Could the maker of the threat have the information or means to carry it out?

As these questions are being considered by law enforcement, the District Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is activated. Anytime the EOC is activated in Carlsbad, the following guiding principles are used to ensure the safety of students and staff:

   Take every threat seriously, and investigate it accordingly.

  Maintain a close relationship with public safety/law enforcement, and develop expertise in the assessment of threats:  (Is the threat isolated to one campus or could other campuses be involved? Does the threat appear to be credible? Do we have a sense of who made the threat (e.g. a student, known suspect, or unknown suspect).

   Determine what immediate actions must be taken, such as initiating a lockdown, and what future action, such or dismissing students early or closing school.

   Communicate with parents and the community in an accurate and timely manner, using a variety of media (emails, Facebook, Twitter, School Messenger, and website postings.

   Implement a plan to provide counseling and support services for students as appropriate.

Incidents such as this reaffirm how important our partnership is with the Carlsbad Police Department and how much we value this partnership. As we debrief the incident with law enforcement, staff, parents, and students our conversations will continue to focus on how we can adapt to our tightly-wired world, where nothing is private and the sharing of information has no boundaries.

Disconnecting is not the answer. Instead we hope to identify ways that our school district can join together to engage parents, students and the greater community in conversations that build awareness and better digital citizenship.