Keep in mind as the parent you have every right to keep the child home from school for a day or two. If your intuition tells you to do so then do it. I certainly would.

I’d take comfort in your kid’s school taking the threat seriously and responding excessively. Hopefully, the message they are sending is received appropriately by the people needing to hear it.

At the beginning of the year, my youngest son told me a former classmate of his was arrested for making school shooting threats. Sure enough, the kid made the local evening news. They were classmates from 3rd through 6th grade. We went to his birthday parties and he came to our son’s birthday parties. The kid had issues. I subbed for his class for a month one year and on many other occasions as well. He didn’t like school, frequently acted out, got sent to the office, etc. I never heard him or heard of him making any threats like that. He switched schools for 7th grade and we did as well but not to the same school. I don’t believe for a second that he would have carried out any threat and don’t believe he had the means to either.

I believe he said something stupid and that he needs help. He’s not crazy like some of these people and I hope the arrest was a wake up call for his family to get him some help.

My point is kids say stupid things everyday. That’s not a reason to panic. Most kids know not to say these things and will report it when they hear it. I’ve told my kids to do just that, not only to the school but to my wife and I as well and we’ll make sure the school hears about it. The schools and law enforcement take these things seriously.

I’m comfortable with the plans the two schools my three kids attend have in place. I had a quick chat with the campus police officer assigned to my daughter’s building and he can be any where in that building in less than a minute. He’s a LEO, armed, and armored. He’s out directing traffic in the morning and afternoon, so everybody knows he’s there.

My oldest isn’t in that building anymore as he attends only college classes. There’s two to three more officers around the college campus, it’s a small campus, and they are visible as well.

At the new school I helped start that my youngest attends, there’s no armed security. On the other hand, several administrators, teachers, and at least one of the pastors have their CWLs. I’m comfortable with the process they have in place and the measures they are looking at in the future.

The point of all this is that I don’t want you to think I don’t care. I do, but I don’t believe risk of my kids being victims of a school shooter is at the top of my fatherly worries. Car accidents are at the top of my list for my 16yo boy. Not because of him, but rather all the idiots out there.

I worry, but I do not fear. Psalms 23:4, Psalms 27:1-3

8 Texas colleges and universities received active shooter calls last Thursday.

A college in Collin County had over 200 LEO's respond.

So thankful all the calls were swatting/hoax calls and also impressed with the quick response.

Smudge, my 14yo goes to public school here in TX.

We started years ago with training him about the school shooter drills. Some points made to him
-if you hear fireworks-it’s gunfire! Sound the alarm to a teacher.
-take out your door stop (from K-5, I gave each teacher a rubber doorstop with Velcro on one side for her to put on the back of the door so it won’t be lost) (now he carries it in his book bag)
-kick it in place and begin doing the regular school drill (each school covered the windows looking into the room, piles furniture etc)
-go to a window and open it
-place a chair by the window to assist the shorter kids, in case you have to flee.
-DONT WAIT FOR THE TEACHERS INSTRUCTION, if the gunfire is getting louder, climb out the window and encourage others to run with him

We went to the range once and I took a tennis ball. I rolled it slowly downrange and let him have at it with a 22 pistol to show him how it’s very hard to hit a moving target.

There is a video out ther on how to block a door that swings out…this pic is from that video.
The only thing I’d add is to have a teacher paint that back leg, or put a tennis ball on the correct leg so you don’t have to think when or if it happens.

I’m not happy about his next year high school as almost all of the rooms have glass on the hallway wall.(whoever thought this up is an idiot)

I’ve also given a neighbor kids dad the same door stop and explained everything to him. he has his girl carry it in her backpack now.

My first thought was what HRK said - put it in perspective. Sure, from the 50s to now, school shootings are up. But from the 90s to now, per capita student adjusted? I honestly don't know, but I suspect not, or if so, not by much. There's just a lot of sensationalism and it gets a lot of press. You hear about car accidents and plane crashes all the time, but in the grand scheme of things, flying and driving is still a relatively safe thing to do.

Again, I speak from ignorance.

I'd make sure my kid was prepared, specifically knowing how to respond. If there were a truly credible threat, I may keep my kid home. (Although there is the question of knowing how to know it's credible....) Beyond that, trust in your higher power. Easier said than done though, I understand.

Went to pick him up and had to call to be let in. Last week, anyone and everyone could just walk away in, so this was a needed change anyway. My son complained that there were cameras everywhere now. Apparently they didn’t tell anyone anything about it, he just noticed and assumed that the principal wanted to spy on everyone, which he said was “creepy.”

“Dad, they’re everywhere. The hallways, every corner, and even outside on every corner!” He seemed kind of offended about it, like he thought they were cracking down on them for no good reason. I didn’t explain why, but I did explain how we were probably filmed by several dozen cameras on the way home, between traffic cameras, dashcams and people’s home security setups, probably even more. He was surprised at this, especially that I had a camera running in the truck recording video and audio. I then explained why we use cameras and spun a yarn about “Bonzo,” who decides to rob a store with a ski mask he bought at Walmart, and then walked my son through everything from the cameras in the store to the dash cam down the street that caught him taking the mask off, which was recovered complete with hair, to the cellphone GPS and bank records that tied him to the scene of the crime, and the purchase of the ski mask at Walmart. Bonzo got sentenced and spent a year and a day in prison, plead down from a host of charges to armed burglary, and he got out early for good behavior, but the ankle monitor showed him at the bowling alley one day after work instead of going home, which the cameras there confirmed, so he got picked up for parole violation and spent several more months in prison.

It was a good talk, and mainly I wanted to make the cameras make sense. He has a two part state test tomorrow and Thursday, so we’ll talk about shootings later. Tomorrow, we’re going to play tag with Nerf guns and I’ll explain “if these were real guns, the couch and the kitchen island wouldn’t stop bullets,” so I can surreptitiously work in cover vs concealment as per an old cop friend’s suggestion. Good stuff in this thread. Thanks, everyone.

My daughter is in 4th grade and attends a school just outside my jurisdiction. If there is an active shooter my agency would be responding to assist and would probably beat the deputies there. I have instructed my daughter not to call 911 because it is going to be busy but to call me directly instead. I don't think that would work well for folks who are not LEO though.

I also have talked with her principal. He has a pre arranged group chat with all the other LEO parents so he can reach us all quickly if needed.

I have to give my agency credit. They have invested heavily in force on force training for active shooters and made sure we well aware of what is expected of us if we respond to such an event. Our Chief has told us he doesn't care if we were issued a brand new tahoe that morning. If we need to drive it through a wall to breach he expects us to do it.

I have to agree with Jerry (jljones) that we need a zero tolerance policy. Both my kids are grown with my last graduating from Ole Miss this May. At the university level there have been many threats over the 7 years my kids were at Ole Miss and the UPD and Oxford PD have been awesome in dealing and communicating via a school phone app.

My kids also went to a private Catholic HS in Nashville only several miles from the incident that took place a few weeks ago. Only once did they have a real life situation where they went into lockdown as the police secured the campus. My daughter managed to call my wife while they were huddled in the classroom, my wife managed to call me in tears while I was traveling in CA but the incident was a false alarm. Everything the metro PD and the school did was spot on.

Last, the worry with your kids never ends. My daughter thinks I’m a little paranoid with personal security. I am constantly on her to make smart choices and to trust her gut feelings. She got a huge dose of reality last week when a close friend was nearly abducted while pumping gas at a Memphis gas station sometime around 7am. She was cleaning her windshield while pumping gas and didn’t notice a person that claimed to be homeless and living out of his car walk up to her and start asking for money. When she said she didn’t have any, he grabbed her and started dragging her to his car claiming he was going to make her withdraw money from an ATM. There were no other cars around at the time. She fought like hell and managed to break free and run into the small convenient shop where the person locked the door and called the police. It was a huge wake up call for my daughter.

I guess my point is that it is unfortunate that our society has fallen to the point where we even need to have these conversations. Teach your kids the best you can without frightening them beyond the means to live. Until we as a society start holding people accountable for their actions this will continue. Actions should have consequences.

I’m in the school security business.

School threats happen daily. Seriously. We have threat assessments probably 3 times a week. Little Johnny said he was going to stab his teacher. Little Johnny said he was thinking about hurting others. Little Johnny was thinking about participating in national rape day on 4/24 (a real thing, look it up)

There are a LOT of messed up kids in the school system. Every school district has a Nikolas Cruz (Parkland shooter) amongst the students.

Things are improving on school safety but there is always room for improvement.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is… if the cops say there is a threat at your kids school, take note, but I wouldn’t be all that worried. There are literally thousands of threats every day across this country. Kids like to talk shit.

In Henrico County, we have many situations every year. Just had a prank / false threat a day or so ago. So much wasted in these responses, but you have to go. You have to clear. You have to verify safety. I'm with JLJ -- lodge the threat maker, and for a long long long time.

Unfortunately, every place you go is a potential target: school, church, any place with people. All you can do is raise your kids right teaching them right and wrong and what to do if something goes south. Society as a whole has failed to follow any sort of moral compass and our Govt failed to keep our enemies in check within our nation's boarders.

Checkout Citizen Armor for some really light weight advanced options if you are so inclined.

For what it's worth, my wife taught 4-6 grades for nearly 15 years and finally got out last year. It is bad in every respect: parents not holding their kids accountable, schools not supporting their teachers, students disrespecting/hitting their teachers, complete lack of a solid disciplinary program with real consequences, etc. In a word, RESPONSIBILITY, no one owns up to it. Until society owns up to their own failures, we will continue down this road. Just some food for thought.

I’ve installed panels in all of our school backpacks/go bags and started teaching my girls about awareness of direction of fire and being aware of the direction of fire and always having their pack facing the shooter/direction of gunfire. If they have to face the shooting direction, the pack faces that direction, it goes on their back if running away from the shooting direction. It’s not perfect but like fire drills, at least they know what to do. I also tell them to get out if they can and run away from the school to grown ups. I live two minutes from my youngest school and 5 from my oldest high school. I’d arrive before police at the elementary school. Helps that my cousin is a LT with the local police dept.

Our Tennessee Senators have introduced a bill to start a program to hire armed veterans, off duty police, etc. to protect our schools and harden them. If given the chance, I’d certainly do that job. I also gave my oldest a pen and showed her how to use it should she need to. It’s not much but there are some nice ‘pens’ out there that are better than nothing. I also teach my oldest to shoot should she find herself getting a firearm in that situation. My youngest is in a newly constructed school and I was pleasantly surprised to find so many security measures built into the school building itself.

We live in a small town in TN but have already had a mass workplace shooting in our town. Happened at a local large business and the shooter was told he was going to be fired. He calmly walked to his car, grabbed his gun and went in shooting and eventually shot himself. I was close by so made a stop there to see if anyone was on scene yet and volunteered myself should they need help. Don’t know why I went off subject, guess I’m saying start with do what you can ie. panels and teaching them how to make the most of the panel. Make a game out of teaching your kids tactics in your locals church. Sometimes they have similar setups that you can use with churches permission to train your kids on getting out, locking in if they can’t, and fighting back if they can and have to do so. Might help you not think and worry about it all the time if you’ve prepared them best you can.