{"id":736,"date":"2016-01-19T15:58:09","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T15:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/education-expert.com\/?p=736"},"modified":"2023-11-27T09:25:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T09:25:08","slug":"school-safety-and-security-responding-to-terroristic-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/education-expert.com\/NewEE\/school-safety-and-security-responding-to-terroristic-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"School Safety and Security: Responding to Terroristic Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of recent incidences of gun violence, school safety and security has become an increasingly pressing concern in the United States and Canada. Schools, summer camps, daycare centers, and other agencies charged with the safety of children have a duty to protect them, and their ability to do so depends on solid policies, training, and appropriate response to security threats. Laws, regulations, and internal policies designed to shield children from harm may be developed proactively in response to a risk assessment or reactively in response to an event that caused injury to a child. Both are valid options in today\u2019s climate of terroristic threats to school safety and security. Inaction is not. Schools and other child-centered programs must consider and develop appropriate responses to this new dynamic.<\/p>\n

Schools generally respond to terroristic threats quickly and decisively, but examples suggest that, at times, responses might not be sufficient based on the level of risk to school safety and security. In December 2015 \u2014 two weeks after 14 people were murdered nearby in a San Bernardino, Calif. center for people with developmental disabilities \u2014 the Los Angeles Unified School District responded to an e-mail threat to students by<\/span> closing more than 1,000 schools for a day<\/span><\/a>. At about the same time, New York City officials acknowledged having received a similar threat, but considered it so \u201coutlandish\u201d that they dismissed it as a hoax. As it turned out, nothing did occur in L.A. and the students were safe. New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton accused his Los Angeles counterparts of overreacting, but the question remains: What if the threat had been credible and the school had failed to act?<\/span><\/p>\n

The incidences in New York and Los Angeles are not isolated to large American cities. In November 2015, authorities in Canada \u2014 a country that prides itself on its low crime rate \u2014 reacted to the latest in a rash of e-mailed threats by<\/span> closing 71 schools<\/span><\/a> in Quebec and Ottawa. Nothing was found in any of those searches, either. \u201cNotwithstanding the fact that these threats seem to be unfounded, they are taken very seriously by police and will be the subject of an investigation,\u201d police in Quebec said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taking action in response to these threats, which met the provincial definition of a terrorist act, is the right thing to do. Ignoring or making light of any terroristic threat places students and teachers at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Appropriate Response to School Safety and Security Threats<\/b><\/p>\n

The standard of professional care and legal standards for determining what constitutes a credible threat are contradictory and confusing. Until the U.S. Supreme Court defines a common standard, various contradictory lower court opinions will persist. With no clear standard of what constitutes a credible threat to school safety and security or how a school or other agency should respond to one, personnel must take all terroristic threats or suspected threats seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

States and provinces have definitions of what constitutes a <\/span>terroristic threat, <\/span><\/i>and these definitions may fit in the context of schools as well. For example,<\/span> Pennsylvania law<\/span><\/a> defines a terroristic threat as a threat to commit violence with intent to terrorize another person, to cause evacuation of a building, or to cause serious public inconvenience with reckless disregard for the risk of doing so. In the school context, a warning of a mass shooting that prompts a school evacuation and disrupts education constitutes a terroristic threat under Pennsylvania law, and in response, action can be taken against the perpetrator.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to state and provincial laws, other resources provide guidance for schools:<\/span><\/p>\n