Houston area schools dealing with threats this week. What’s the best way for districts and parents to respond?

HOUSTON – In the wake of online and social media posts suggesting Texas schools would become targets of violence, Houston Independent School District responded by increasing security at district schools this week.

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The threats impacted schools statewide, and we saw several area campuses deal with incidents that triggered lockdowns, panicked parents, and frightened students.

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Billy Baines Middle School in Fort Bend Independent School District dealt with a threat on Thursday that saw parents scrambling to pick up their children after reports of a loud pop noise.

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Administrators sent out an email to parents that said in part:

School leaders and the Fort Bend ISD Police Department received a report of an alleged threat against the school and immediately began an investigation. Although this is not believed to be a credible threat, the safety of our students and staff remains our top priority, and additional officers will be on patrol and present on campus tomorrow.

In Needville Independent School District, threats also triggered an investigation and increased security.

A student in Channelview was arrested and charged with a felony Thursday after making a post online threatening Channelview High School.

And in HISD, Sharpstown International School also dealt with a false threat after rumors of a student with a gun triggered a lockdown.

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Mike Matranga is the owner of M6 Global Defense, a security firm that assists K-12 schools in keeping students safe. He said this surge of online threats is impacting schools nationwide.

“There’s always an influx in threats at the beginning of the school year,” he explained.

Matranga also believes we are seeing a spike in violence because we’re living in a completely different world due to social media. He encourages parents to take a more active role in their children’s lives.

“You’ve got to monitor your kids and how they’re speaking in public and how they’re speaking online. It’s incumbent upon you. It could mean the difference between a kid that is on this pathway to violence. It could mean the difference between your kid being charged with a crime based upon what might have just been a joke. We’ve got to do better as parents.”

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He also believes that administrative staff at schools need to do all they can to communicate with parents when an emergency occurs.

“The public information officer needs an assistant so that while they’re assessing the development and the orchestration of what’s happening, they can now turn to their assistant and say, ‘Push out this message’. Eight minutes later, ‘Push out a new message.’ Eight minutes later, ‘Push out another.’ Staying in that cadence and keeping those people informed is going to reduce that anxiety and it’s going to keep people more levelheaded.”

In the interest of keeping things calm in these high-pressure situations, Matranga also encourages parents to not rush the school when they receive a notification.

“I get it. I’m a parent. I have two daughters. It would be hard for me to refrain, but I would say that you’re contributing to the problem. There is nothing that you can do as a parent to help that situation. In fact, you’re hindering the response. Wait on that communications director in that district to start pushing out that information that you need to make a better-informed decision. Because when parents storm these schools, it causes more problems not only for the administrators, but for the law enforcement or potentially the medical personnel that’s going to come save your kid.”