I currently have three school-aged kids, and I’ve been homeschooling for over a decade for many reasons. School violence is only one of them, but it’s on the list. For a different set of reasons, we decided to place these three in public schools this year.
Since school started, we’ve watched a child in Georgia get arrested and charged with the murder of four people in his school, and dozens more get arrested for making threats to do the same in other schools.
This time, the threat was at my kids’ school.
Most Threats Turn Out To Be Hoaxes
Several years ago, I received a message that there was a threat at a school I attended as a kid. It turned out to be something between a hoax and a misunderstanding. Someone somewhere had posted a threat of a school attack and hadn’t named the school. If I understand correctly, kids at multiple other schools had seen it, assumed it meant their own school, and reposted it to “warn” their schoolmates—probably genuinely thinking they were protecting other kids rather than spreading unwarranted panic.
Statistically, most school shooters have not made announcements on social media or even been on the radar of school officials or police before they attacked. Of course, the Georgia case was a notable exception, with Colt Gray being investigated a full year in advance of the event.
But as copycat threats have followed that mass murder, one kid after another has told police it was a “joke” or they thought it was “funny.” If police have found evidence contradicting those assertions, it hasn’t been made public.
Hoaxes Are Still Terrifying & Traumatic
The official consensus seems to be that we should all have sent our kids to school today, satisfied with extra police presence (we remember how the school resource officers and police in the Apalachee shooting have been praised for doing everything right and yet four people still died, right?) and assurances that the threats weren’t credible.
The consensus among parents is the opposite. I’ve been reading comments in local social media spaces, and the two points of view I see repeatedly are “My kid isn’t going today” and “They should have let us know earlier; I would not have dropped my kid off.”
Personally, my husband and I kept two home, and I went to pick up the one that had already been dropped off. I believe that police probably know what they’re talking about when they say the threat isn’t credible and that everything is safe — but do I believe it to the degree that I’d bet my kid’s life?
If I keep him home and I’m wrong, all that’s lost is one day on his attendance record. If I send him, I’m wrong- nobody even wants to think about finishing that sentence.
Delayed Information Makes Parents Struggle To Trust Schools
When we got the news through the school’s parent contact app this morning, it mentioned that police had received multiple reports on Thursday about this alleged threat. Today is Monday. The parents who knew before now knew because their kids came home and told them or because other people’s kids did. There was no news through official channels until the morning of the day the threat was purported to loom.
The message from the school didn’t describe the origins of the threat, but parents are saying that some kids overheard other kids talking about an act of violence and reported it to teachers. From there, it sounds like texts began to race around spreading the news, and multiple parents, school staff, and/or students must have reported to the police.
We haven’t been told how police determined that the threat wasn’t credible. Did someone overhear incorrectly? Did someone exaggerate what they heard? Did the original group of kids think they were making a funny joke? Since they’re minors, we may never know, but parents are certainly upset that we haven’t been given at least enough information to feel confident in the assessment that it’s not a credible threat.
We have been happy with our kids’ school staff so far. We have a couple of excellent principals and a lot of incredible teachers. Still, we share the concerns of those other parents: why weren’t we told sooner? One parent said their child told them the threat was for Friday rather than Monday. What if he’d been right, and the school still waited until Monday to tell us?
There Are Answers To This But They’re All Inadequate
I’ve been anxious and shaky since I got home from picking my youngest up. What if it was real? What if it was my baby? What if the police presence wasn’t enough? What if they didn’t tell us?
Most of all, how do I ever feel safe sending my kids to school again?
I already know a lot of the answers to this. I shouldn’t make my kids terrified to go to school. I should talk to them honestly but not let my fear affect them. I should certainly remind them that jokes with chickens crossing the road are funny and ‘jokes’ with guns crossing a school campus are threats. I should talk to them about safety and review the safety procedures their schools use to reassure myself that they are secure.
I also know some of the more overarching long-term answers, which involve community efforts, contact with legislators, and activism for safer schools. However, those aren’t enough because my kids have to go back tomorrow.
When I started looking for answers, I found people citing statistics that school shootings aren’t as common as they seem. As of June, Edweek was reporting that there had been seven deaths in school shootings so far this year and another 27 injuries; this was before the Apalachee shooting, where four more deaths were added to the total. With close to 50 million students enrolled in public schools across the U.S., 11 would be a tiny number if we were talking about anything but human lives. But we are talking about human lives, and our babies.
Other than that, the available answers range from discussing safety plans with your child, to seeking mental health support, to homeschooling.
Those are all good answers, but they’re never going to be enough, are they? Especially when mental health and homeschooling aren’t accessible for many families.
We’ll Just Keep Doing This, All Of Us
So, this is what America is going to do.
We’re going to keep getting up and sending our kids off to school. We’ll light candles, say prayers, cross our fingers, recite safety plans, or do any combination thereof, and hope it’s enough.
Some of us will opt for private schools, distance education, or homeschooling. Some of us will fight for more transparency from our local districts, schools, and law enforcement. (I hear a lot of parents here plan to attend an upcoming Board of Education meeting to find out why we weren’t informed sooner.) Many of us will fight for more mental health care and for more legislation to keep firearms out of the hands of children.
And every time it’s not enough, we’ll all cry, break down just a little more, and keep doing the same things, over and over, hoping that eventually, it will be enough.