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* Nobody wants to see a repeat of NIU, or Columbine, or whatever, but WBBM Radio has a good piece on the wave of recent school closures…

A rash of threats at Chicago area schools has prompted administrators to cancel classes recently, but it’s tough to tell what’s a legitimate precursor to violence or just some kids trying to get out of class.

Brett Sokolow tries to help universities train staff to identify credible threats and mitigate problems before they get to the point of menacing messages on bathroom stalls. […]

Sokolow says credible threats are often repeated and have lots of details.

Founder of the Center for Aggression Management John Byrnes says lots of schools overact by closing campus because they don’t know what they’re looking for and they’re worried about legal liability.

He says looking for aggressive students through body language would cause authorities to miss cold, calculating types like Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 students at Virginia Tech.

* I was talking with some pals this week who told me that when they were in high school together, somebody shot a teacher and the students were told to get back to class and not talk to the media.

Things would be much different today.

* The question: Can we be too careful? Or is the rash of closures prudent?

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 7:47 am

Comments

We can be too careful, i.e. manipulated. Also there is that whole living in fear thing. If we let our lives be controled by our fear then those who seek to do these kinds of things have already won. We can not spend our lives cowering inside. That said, I think the legisalture should consider passing an immunity Statute which shields schools and their employee from decisions about whether to leave schools open or closed.

Comment by Ghost Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 7:58 am
We’ve become a nation of frightened rabbits.

The next Mount Rushmore will be populated by Nurse Ratchetts and apparatchiks with the souls of school superintendents. (assuming that the 70 environmental impact studies and 20 consultants agree)

Comment by Bruno Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 8:07 am
The problem with an overabundance of caution is that it can be easily used as amusement. Risk is a part of life. I cane recite a list of things that were commonly practiced when we were kids that would call attention to the child protective police.
(e.g. policeman overstepping their authority and charging a woman with child abuse when she was 20 feet away from her car. )

I remember that when i was a kid, there was a rash of threatened ‘bombings’. Students would call in threats for the heck of it or if they were not prepared for their exams.

It seems that the Grayslake ‘threats’ were more result of spring fever than real safety issues.

Granting blanket immunity to an already over-insulated class of people is a goofy idea.

Comment by Plutocrat03 Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 8:26 am
In the years after 9/11, my niece used to tell me how they had “bomb threats” weekly at her school (in Southeastern U.S.), and had to evacuate or cancel school all the time. Especially during test week.

It is a difficult choice - disrupt school for practical jokes or intentional manipulation, or be prudent and wise about the prospect of any attack.

Comment by GoBearsss Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 8:41 am
Pluto why is it a goofy idea? Just calling the idea names does not really advance that the concept is bad How do we as a society benefit from multimillion dollar lawsuits against schools everytime a violent act occurs? Keep in mind the money to pay these most of the time comes out of the tax payers pockets anyway.

There is no real benefit to making school officilas so paranoid about litigation that they close school at every snear so they can avoid Illinois second lottery, our legal system.

Comment by Ghost Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 8:43 am
Ghost has got it right-certainly caution is vital,but reaction such as closing institutions on the basis of graffiti alone will spawn many more disruptions-

Comment by gray wolf Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 8:43 am
GoBearsss, Chicken little thought he was prudent and wise as well

Comment by Ghost Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 8:44 am
A quick Google search shows that sadly, school shootings are not new… I remember those two 12 year olds who pulled a fire alarm and hid up on the hill with rifles back in 98. In 85 a 14-year old opened fire in his school with a semi-automatic and a handgun. My sister-in-law attends NIU and it took us more than 2 hours to find out if she was safe.

The media puts entirely too much emphasis on these tragedies. I listened as a reporter talking to NIU students on their cell phones live, worked the kids into a frenzy by speculating that although the threat was allegedly over, did they “think other gunmen could still be on the loose.” Making celebrities out of the gunmen and criticizing administrations for not doing enough is abhorrent. The sad truth is that often nothing could have been done. Even if there were “better” polices in place an individual with a gun and mindset will sidestep or plow through.

What if there was an armed guard in every classroom of every university? Instead of shooting the teacher first at NIU, he would have stepped out from behind the curtain and shot the guard first.

Comment by Learning the Ropes Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 8:46 am
I witnessed riots and one time witnessed my history teacher getting stabbed in the arm with an ice pick. My brother got stitches when a gang attacked his bus and pulled all the guys off of it and beat them. I carried a knife and I was the whiz kid in latin class.

With each of these incidents, the news was kept out of it. We were told not to report it or answer questions. After three years of daily life like this, I graduated early in my junior year just to get out. I hated that school.

We live in a different age in that lawyers ride shotgun in every facet of it. They are telling us that anything that surprises us negatively can be the basis of a lawsuit. Consequentially, schools react immediately to threats of violence to prevent bearing the lawsuits if they are wrong and a threat becomes real.

Schools have few options because of this. Intra-student behavior becomes expensive legal cases. Teacher-student interactions become court fodder when they were once resolved without lawyers. We live in a legal age where many believe that frustrations could be a basis for wealth via a lawsuit. Turn on the television during the day, and you see lawyers telling you that you are owed something by somebody - and that they would help.

In this sick legal environment, schools have no options but to play it safe.

Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 9:01 am
Our local district had a bomb threat and a shooting threat on consecutive days last month. Both were discovered toward the end of the school day, and shool was not cancelled.

School officials and local police determined that the bomb threat was not credible and had the note writer in custody in less than four hours. The shooting threat was a little more dicey. The note writer had been studying the prospect over a short period of time. He was in custody in less than two hours after the note was found.

Obviously, some threats are simply cries for help or pranks. Some are not. Identifying the characteristics of both will help school officials act appropriately.

However, there are always exceptions to the rule. If school officials ignore them because they don’t fit the profile of a credible threat, and deaths occur, will it all appear “goofy” then?

Comment by Fan of the Game Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 9:13 am
How many of the school shootings were preceded by a specific threat? Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems as if most signs of serious trouble were signs that the individual was troubled, not specific threats.

Comment by the Other Anonymous Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 9:26 am
Unfortunately gun threats on bathroom walls are turning into the new fire alarm pranks, except instead of getting out of class for 15 mins. it’s the whole day.

I’d still err on the side of caution (Vanilla’s points about the legal environment are also well-founded), but schools have to get better at ciphering the difference between legit threats and pranks by kids who want to play hooky.

–

Bruno seems to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this decade…

Comment by Rob_N Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 9:27 am
At Halloween, kids are not allowed to bring toy swords and obviously toy guns to school as part of their costume.

This all goes too far. But, the government clearly gains power when the populace is frightened. Many people are less likely to question clear infringements on our rights. So, I doubt that that the official response will change any time soon.

Comment by Pot calling kettle Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 9:41 am
I agree we are playing Chicken Little. But, just wait for the out cry if a school does not react and something happens.

Comment by Shelbyville Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 9:46 am
Ghost

The goofiness is the special treatment of school officials. I can understand a kneejerk response to the ‘we have to do something’ impulse, but we should use our minds and think things through before we act.

Threats against personal safety can occur in many settings. If there is to be a general policy to indemnify or protect decision makers, then it should be done for the entire class of decision makers, not just a small subset.

We have to be vigilant of the law of unintended consequences when applying governmental powers. We do not want to have bad decision makers protected by the law. Look at how stupid many of the no tolerance issues appear. There was a suspension because a student drew a gun on a piece of paper.

Comment by Plutocrat03 Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 10:03 am
Can we refrain from referring to tragic events simply by the place they occur? NIU might not be a spectacular institution, but no place deserves to be identified strictly for one horrendous event. Don’t promote it.

Comment by My Ego Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 10:13 am
Count me in for electing Chicken Little mayor.

The ramification of being wrong when the sky really is falling is staggering, even if it is a rare occurrence. Lawsuits, liability, media scorn, people losing their jobs, power shifting….it is all too much to bear.

Comment by Leroy Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 10:52 am
In the early/mid 1980’s, a disgruntled Rockford Boylan Catholic High school student removed his dad’s 357magnum from safe, loaded it & took it to school. He was unhappy with his teacher [German class?] so just after his morning class started, he shot her in the neck and fled from the school. Classes continued with orders to keep local media out of the school. Cops searched while school continued on. Shooter missed arteries + teacher lived. [Juv court system released the attempted-murderer when he turned 21].

Common knowledge; if you have a big test or assignment due & you are behind, you/your friends “stage” something big. Phone call or crayon on bathroom wall is better than simple truancy and your school will be on the news…. kids laugh and say “look what we did”. The 1st time the school admin or cops ignore something that sounds bogus and something DOES happen, expect to be wiped clean by media & lawyers.

NIU shootings: some want to punish the building if there are xx number of killings? OK, so maybe at 50 murders, we demolish an entire neighborhood. 300 murders and we demolish all of Chicago? 15 DUI deaths, we tear up the Edens? 30 killings and we tear down Joliet? Maybe this will help Camden NJ or Detroit but the damage to innocents too high here.

Comment by North of I-80 Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 11:02 am
We’re overboard.

The 24/7 news cycle with the endless repetition of tragedies contributes to a feeling that we’re all in constant peril. We’re not. The murders at the universities and at Columbine are so horrific because they are unusual. And by the way, how often do bombs explode at schools?

You know how many fatal car accidents there are a day? Anyone scared to get behind the wheel? No, because accidents are so common they’ve lost their shock value. You put it in gear, hope for the best and enjoy the ride — just like life.

School administrators are afraid of everything. They substitute zero-tolerance rules for judgement. They overreact to even the most ludicrous threats for fear of being second-guessed.

This will pass though eventually. Threat assessment methods like the ones you referred to will improve and be adopted. Violent tragedy, though, is as old as Cain and Abel.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 11:06 am
I don’t think we can be too careful but I think all these closings are amusing somebody. Perhaps we need to put a dent in them. Someone who’s going to do something may not even consider leaving a threatening notice.

Comment by Levois Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 11:48 am
NIU had a bomb threat yesterday and, sure enough, I saw the TV trucks out. So many aspects of the phenomenon are media-driven.

Some are taking bets that if they find the bomb threat person, s/he’ll get the punishment the shooter would have gotten.

Yes, we can be too careful. The pendulum has swung so far in that direction it’s about flown off into space.

Comment by yinn Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 11:53 am
We had a shooting over lunch and across the street by a student in Normal in 1988 (I think that was the year). We went back to class and that was it for the day. We had a bomb threat a few days later and emptied out onto Rt. 51 in front of the school. When we returned I joked with one teacher that it was like a return to the 70s when they used to have bomb threats at least monthly.

There were multiple rumors of more violence coming in the following days, but other than the bomb threat, nothing happened.

The largest incident was still in 1927 so I think the notion that it’s entirely new is wrong, the nature has changed a lot since the UT Austin incident in the 60s.

I have to think in high schools, additional security is probably the answer after a threat instead of calling off classes, but colleges present a very different problem given the size of campuses.

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 12:01 pm
Anyone remember the grade schooler who was suspended for pointing a chicken finger at a teacher and saying “pow?”

Totally rational.

Comment by Learning the Ropes Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 12:16 pm
My sons campus was recently closed due to a threatening message. I applaud and support this institutions decision to act with the student’s safety and best interest in mind. I am confident that school administrators think long and hard before they decide to close a school. Law enforcement officials can make recommendation but utimatley, the school has to decide. Each incident needs to be reviewed seperately and a determination needs to be made as to the credibility of the threat.

The 18-22 year age span is when many mental illnesses begin to appear and add to that mix being on your own for the first time. Unfortunately, the quirky kid down the hall might have a lot more problems than one realizes.

I am by no means a chicken little. I live in Chicago and have raised my kids to have “street sense.” They travel around and are able to enjoy much of what the city has to offer. But they also know to pay attention to their surroundings. When your gut tells you something is wrong, it’s usually right.

It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, not knowing all the facts. Hopefully, some of these kids making the threats will be identified. The schools should take them and their parents to civil court and pay for damages. The parents have a responsibility in this as well. We need to drive home to our kids that this type of behavior is unaccepatable and with it come severe consequences.

Comment by anon Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 12:23 pm
anon - 12:23 Will your attitude change if this turns into a regular event and classes are called off 1 or 2 days each week due to ‘credible’ threats?

Comment by North of I-80 Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 12:39 pm
it’s getting over the top but it is hard to know what the line for care is.

the helicopter parents have taken the line of care for kids so far that we have all become afraid
to know upon whose toes we step. and then there are those national terror alerts.

we need to spend more time caring about the mental health of students, convicting and keeping bad people in prison, keeping guns out of the hands of the criminal and menatally ill (yes, including letting police get the data they need to do work, and slowing the flow of guns and keeping military style weapons with no purpose for hunting out of the hands of the public).

and on the foreign terror front, it is much the same. the warnings are much less important. keep weapons big and small out of the hands of terrorists/criminals, search the cargo on planes trains and ships, guard the borders, find Osama (dammit!!!!), deal with nations creating nukes, deal with the many kinds of terrorists everywhere, world famine and drought, disease, water shortages.

but then the slow work for progress is so much less flashy than the fear alerts to the public.

Comment by Amy Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 12:55 pm
Nothwithstanding the tragedies of Virginia Tech and NIU, the rash of school closings sems like a gross overreaction to me. It seems to encourage copycat threats.

Comment by Captain America Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 1:01 pm
North of I-80

As I said, when the schools and or law enforcement identify those making the threats, the schools need to go after these individuals and their parents in civil court. School suspension isn’t enough. Make some examples of a few and hopefully the idiot kid thinking he or she will get a long weekend will realize that there are real consequences. I would think that this will curb the tide of copy cat threats.

Comment by anon Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 2:10 pm
I am a former teacher. I still think that we need to error on the side of caution.

The kooks will figure this out. Day one, their threat is ignored. Day two, their threat is ignored. By day three, kook is really perturbed and acts on the threat.

It is M.O.O., but if these threats were happening at the Capitol, the building would be evacuated, no matter how often it occurs.

Given the choice, I would keep my kids home.

Comment by Shelbyville Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 2:33 pm
If a school is evacuated, instruction is not taking place. If the capitol is evacuated…what? Public business grinds to a halt? How could we tell? At least we know the governor would be a safe distance away.

Comment by Excessively rabid Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 2:51 pm
Common sense needs to be used. Sounds too easy for students to close down a school just by writing a phrase on the bathroom wall. This wil happen more often, kids see they can ’cause a major issue’ just by wrting or saying something.

While caution needs to be practiced, schools administrators have become to gunshy now.

Comment by pickles!! Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 3:58 pm
Arch - we must have gone to high school together; I remember the shooting at Burger King, too (and the bomb threat later). I was at lunch at the time of the shooting and we went on with our day like nothing had happened, except for some teachers running frantically through the hallways checking on security. I think we might have been required to stay in the building, but that was about it.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Are all of these closings over the top? Probably, but it’s almost impossible to tell which ones are serious and which aren’t. So, until we can be sure which are a hoax, how do you decide “well, this one most likely isn’t serious, so let’s risk it?” In an enclosed area like a high school, though, it probably makes just as much sense to have everyone come in and drastically increase security that day or days rather than keeping everyone away.

Comment by Kate Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 4:00 pm
How much risk would you subject your own child to? How much of a gamble is your own child’s life or health worth?

Comment by anon Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 5:01 pm
As a parent, I’m more interested right now in seeing what the Agencies are going to do to INVESTIGATE these incidents to find the culprits behind the recent threats, as I believe that publicly holding people accountable for their actions is the best preventative measure at this point.

I, personally, am not aware of the details of the investigations and how successful they are because most of the press and discussion right now seems to be grounded in the closures themselves so I’m assuming (and hoping) they’re still in progress and will continue until the culprits are found.

I’m also worried about HOW these investigations are being/will be conducted (i.e., I hope we have some good psychs working on the methods used to find the culprits) as we obviously don’t want to “trigger” an attack through the investigations themselves.

That’s also my fear when it comes to letting “self-appinted” arbiters of “body language” and “aggresive behavior” start their own “witch-hunts” as preventative measures or as investigations of incidents that have already occurred.

Academia especially is full of “experts” in their Psych departments who are probably chomping at the bit to prevent, investigate, and make a name for themselves. That to me is a bigger fear than the resulting lawsuits that they have a tendency to attract via their personal witch-hunts as well.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 6:18 pm
I need to clarify, too, that I’m not propsing that we stop preventative measures. We need to make sure that we have QUALIFIED people assigned to taking preventative measure COMBINED WITH having qualified people investigating each incident through to closure.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Apr 18, 08 @ 6:24 pm