School threats have been on the rise for years, but it seems like there's been an explosion of them since the Florida shooting. Not a day goes by that we don't hear about a district somewhere in Michigan going on lockdown. Just today all Plymouth-Canton schools were closed because of a threat. It's creating more than just security problems.
It's pretty easy for schools to alert parents. Deciding when to send that text, email, or call is the problem. I talked with a superintendent about keeping parents in the loop without inciting panic.
"Letting people have information and being transparent and running everything down and realizing that every time you tell a parent something the parents become concerned," said Bill DeFrance.
Bill DeFrance superintendent of Eaton Rapids Schools says the alert software is an amazing tool, but knowing when to utilize it is the challenge.
"Parents would want to come to the campus, they would want to get their kid out of school. You end up having chaos, so you wanna be careful about the time you communicate to parents," said DeFrance.
DeFrance says whenever they have possible threats they will let parents know after the police have come and made sure the school is cleared of any threats. However, that's not the case when it is legitimate.
"If something is real we let parents know right away, but it's the investigation piece which is really the tricky piece to be able to figure out," said DeFrance.
Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth is no stranger to dealing with school threats.
He says they take every one seriously because the students' safety is his number one concern.
"We have to take every threat seriously and vet it out. We'd rather look into something and have it be nothing than never be told have it be something," said Sheriff Wriggelsworth.
Sheriff Wriggelsworth gets that students use social media as an outlet to vent, but he says they need to be mindful of what they say because of the lasting effect it could have.
"These threats can lead to criminal charges. A lot of them would be felony criminal charges and this is something that could haunt you for the rest of your life," said Sheriff Wriggelsworth.
