A steady increase in school shootings in recent years, combined with a flurry of violent threats and swatting calls, has districts on edge as they begin the 2024-25 school year. 

In Florida, an 11-year-old allegedly made threats this school year to commit a mass shooting at a middle school in Volusia County — one of 54 threats received by school officials and law enforcement across the county in the span of just a week. In Chicago, threats of violence have already led to school closures, remote learning and panic among students this school year.

However, tips received by schools can also be credible. Right before a mass school shooting in Georgia last month, student Colt Gray's mother reportedly voiced concerns about her son to the school counselor at Apalachee High School before Gray killed two students and two teachers on Sept. 4. There is also speculation that one of Gray's teachers noted concerning behavior prior to the shooting, according to news reports.

"In the early stages of an incident, officials are in the 'fog of war,' and details may be scant," said Ken Trump, a school safety consultant and president of National School Safety and Security Services, an emergency preparedness firm. "As time goes on, details from each incident tend to unfold to get a better understanding of what happened, what did not happen, what worked, and what, if anything, failed."

Routing reports to behavioral threat assessment teams

To evaluate the credibility of concerning student behavior, schools should have in place a behavioral threat assessment team that investigates all concerns — no matter how big or small, said Guy Bliesner, a school safety and security analyst for the Idaho State Board of Education. 

However, for the threat assessment teams to meet their full potential, schools should have in place a system where anyone — teachers, students, parents, bus drivers — can make a report that is ultimately routed to the team for evaluation. 

"When you look at the after action reports from these things, multiple people said, 'Well, I saw this. I saw that.' It was never routed anywhere," said Bliesner. 

That information, Bliesner said, should be "moved effectively to somewhere to be looked at in aggregate with all of the other reports — the one that came from the cafeteria and from the bus driver and from all of those places — so that you can build the entire picture, as opposed to trying to make this decision based on one-off observations." 

Change reporting culture

To encourage that kind of reporting, however, classroom culture needs to shift from one where teachers feel judged for student misbehavior to one where reporting is expected. 

"And that's a hangover from another era, where we didn't report anything for fear that it would be listed on our teacher evaluation that we didn't have good classroom management skills," said Bliesner. "So we're fighting an institutional inertia of teachers who believe that good teaching is handling it in a classroom."

Professional development and training can help in this area. 

"While the facts and merits of each case will vary, a common theme we have seen in prior school safety litigation cases is that allegations of failures tend to focus on alleged failures of human factors — people, policies, procedures, communications, training, systems gaps, etc.," said Trump. "Not alleged failures of security hardware, products, and technology." 

Put support in place early

Entire school communities must also embrace the reporting culture, including kids who are sometimes pressured to not report out of fear for punitive consequences their peers might face, said Bliesner. 

To avoid that fear, behavioral threat assessment systems should offer support rather than suspicion to students who have been reported. 

"Behavioral threat assessment is not disciplinary," stressed Bliesner. "It was never designed as such."

Rather, they are meant to identify students who may need specific support, like mental health resources, and provide that resource while also keeping students and communities safe. "So do understand that it's not and should not be seen as disciplinary or punitive in any way."

While school security experts often vouch for threat assessment teams, several disability and civil rights groups oppose them, citing concerns that students with disabilities and students of color are disproportionately impacted.