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.
