CLEVELAND — On Thursday, at least five school districts in Northeast Ohio reported social media threats, continuing a disturbing trend of shooting threats this year.
3News has counted at least 12 threat incidents at 11 different school districts this week:
- Monday: Garfield Heights City Schools, Cleveland Arts and Social Science Academy, Copley-Fairlawn Schools
- Tuesday: Clearview Schools, Lorain City Schools
- Wednesday: Lorain County Joint Vocational School, Twinsburg City Schools
- Thursday: Clearview Schools, Coventry Schools, Orrville City Schools, Wooster City Schools, Cuyahoga Falls City Schools
According to a social media post from the athletics department for Keystone Local School District in LaGrange, the threats against Clearview Schools prompted the two districts' planned high school football games this weekend to be canceled. Clearview and Keystone's varsity teams were supposed to meet Friday night with the JV teams set for a Saturday morning game.
Ken Trump, president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services, told 3News he believes the spike in threats are a result of the Apalachee High School shooting in Georgia last week that left four dead and nine injured.
"It's normal to see a contagion effect, an uptick in school threats following a high-profile school shooting," Trump said. "Typically, for days, even maybe a couple of weeks, we see a number of spin-off incidents, copycats, where unfortunately people are making bad decisions, oftentimes kids who are making threats to get attention, to seek attention, to draw attention to themselves, to get the power of being able to see a massive law enforcement response, the shutdown schools, the power and control of making the threats."
His advice is for district leaders to have threat assessment teams, training and protocols in place, and crisis communication plans.
"We want schools to assess and then react, not react and then assess," Trump explained. "Don't automatically evacuate. Don't close your schools on a vague, unsubstantiated threat. Closing schools under the abundance of caution may solve your problem today, but what's going to happen tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that, if you're really just closing to help people feel safer, to deal with emotional security? We want people to assess and then react, not react and then assess."
Trump stressed that schools and families need to teach kids the severe consequences for these school threats, including suspension and expulsion from school, criminal prosecution, and even restitution.
"Restitution means the kids, their families, have to pay back the cost for all the time, the financial cost of the time for massive police response, investigations, heightened security at the school, and that can run into thousands and tens of thousands of dollars," he said.
Looking at actual school shootings so far this year, NBC News reports there have been two planned school shootings involving active shooters. Last year there were eight and the year before that seven. In 2021, there were four.