COLUMBUS, Ohio — The prosecutor calls it “bomb week,” his shorthand for eight school threats — many written in school bathrooms or on notes — over a few days in May that set off evacuations and investigations, parental panic, and
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The prosecutor calls it “bomb week,” his shorthand for eight school threats — many written in school bathrooms or on notes — over a few days in May that set off evacuations and investigations, parental panic, and the rumor mill of students linked by cellphones and social media in his Ohio county.
Track athletes missed an end-of-season competition, and some high schoolers started carrying their car keys with them instead of leaving them in lockers, just in case, Warren County prosecutor David Fornshell said. One mother complained that a girl who uses an insulin pump had taken it off for gym class and had to evacuate without it.
“Nobody who sends their kids to school should have to go through that kind of stress and that type of disruption,” Fornshell said.
Such violent or disruptive threats are increasing nationwide, according to police, school employees, security consultants and others, blamed sometimes on local students and sometimes on outsiders seeking to cause disruptions or a big emergency response.
State and local agencies don’t track the threats, meaning there’s no formal accounting of the collective costs. The disruptions typically aren’t long enough to merit makeup classes, but the learning time lost to evacuations and cancellations adds up, as do the hours police spend responding and investigating.
The number of school bomb threats the last academic year alone, based on media reports, was at least 1,267, roughly twice as many as in 2012-13, said Klinger, researcher of the nonprofit Educator’s School Safety Network who also teaches educational administration at Ohio’s Ashland University.
Her group estimates there were about eight bomb threats per school day last year, and that doesn’t include other threats of violence and disruption. Massachusetts had the most in that tally at 135 bomb threats, followed by Ohio with 96.
Because administrators and police can’t simply ignore threats , they grapple with the fallout while trying to deter copycats.
Lawmakers in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and elsewhere have explored strengthening penalties for school threats.
In Ohio, lawmakers are proposing legislation to let schools expel students for months for making certain kinds of threats and have them evaluated to determine whether they’re a danger to themselves or others.
The bill, supported by associations representing school boards, superintendents and school business managers, also would let districts and law enforcement agencies seek restitution from a student’s parents for the costs of responding to their threat.
At least half of the Ohio threats last school year led to evacuations, dismissals or cancellation of classes or activities, according to AP’s analysis.
Even the false alarms can have broad consequences, and the prosecutor overseeing the “bomb week” cases is trying to drive home that point.
A handful of students were blamed for those threats, including a 12-year-old girl. Fornshell said he would ask a judge to make those found responsible for evacuations write handwritten apology letters to each of the hundreds of affected families in the district — perhaps 1,500 or more, depending on the district — in addition to time in juvenile detention or any other discipline.
“My hope is that it gives them a better appreciation of how wide-reaching their conduct was and how much disruption is actually caused,” Fornshell said.
