Social Media Threats Close Schools and Delay Games in Multiple Virginia Counties
Nationwide there is always a spike in threats of violence after a school shooting, but Virginia has been included in the social media threats of the last three weeks. Social media threats to at least three schools have made local headlines in Chesterfield Co., Pulaski Co. and at a Virginia Beach private school; however, we are aware that other schools and districts have also had threats
All three lost one day or more of school. Fortunately, in Virginia all three of the threats that made headlines have been traced back to their origin with seemingly no continuing threat level. Briefly, Hanover County residents even though schools on a TikTok list referred to their schools, but then recognized Georgia schools of the same names were the actual targets.
These incidents coincide with a nationwide wave of violence related to the Apalachee High School shooting which killed four and injured nine, and the presidential debate Ohio political hoax against migrants that has triggered regional aggression and closures in twelve or more Ohio school districts. At this writing, the Proud Boys fascists are marching in Springfield Ohio as they did in Charlottesville Virginia.
In addition to Georgia and Ohio, incidents are being reported from numerous states. Florida, describes their schools as being inundated with social media threats. Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Texas, Colorado, and Tennessee all report recent outbreaks.
There is a long list of questions to be asked about these outbreaks and the prevalence of violence and violent threats. What are root causes, contributory issues, immediate costs, and longer term solutions? Are there higher level policies and national leadership actions that carry responsibility, such as weapons laws and the use of hate and disinformation in our political rhetoric?
However, these Virginia closures are not just national trends. They are local. They are immediate and personal for the families, students, and school employees who feel threatened and whose lives are affected by immediate fears, uncertainty, closed schools, delayed games and longer-term fears. One day, these threats may become actual violence. Also, these concerns disrupt learning and teaching, long after the threat has been dealt with.
The questions we ask when it’s our own communities are different from those we ask at a safe distance. Are our students and families getting the support they need to meet the challenges of current times? How can we protect our children without creating a barricaded existence for them? How do we build a community where we all belong and are not alienated from our neighbors and fellow students?
One of the reasons we as a society put so much emphasis on the quality of our schools is because they are an almost lone indicator for the quality of our communities. Are our local neighborhoods peaceful and nurturing to our families or are they dangerous and a source of fear? Our local schools mirror those questions for us, and when they are disturbed and threatened, our sense of who we are as a community and as a people is disturbed. Our confidence in our own ability to live together is shaken. After all, what kind of society allows its children to kill one another without effective intervention?
There have always been hoax school threats. In 1998, one of my students called in a bomb threat from the pay phone at the front of the building to avoid that morning’s math test. He was picked up before he walked away from the phone, and never came back to school. I knew this kid and he was not capable of harming people, but he was very creative at avoiding school work. Today he would be criminally charged, not just sent to an alternative school with more intense psychological services and smaller class sizes.
Many of the students who are using social media to close their schools for the day are winding up charged with felonies. Sadly, we no longer have the luxury of not taking social media threats seriously. The tragedies of school shootings and of racist attacks on school children must be responded to, and with so many school shootings that is almost an unending process.
Education Week reveals, ”There have been 28 school shootings this year that resulted in injuries or deaths, according to an Education Week analysis. There have been 210 such shootings since 2018. There were 38 school shootings with injuries or deaths last year. There were 51 in 2022, 35 in 2021, 10 in 2020, and 24 each in 2019 and 2018.”
The divide between those who would harden schools with drastic measures and those who believe we must make deeper changes that provide living conditions and psychological supports that help our children before their mental health reaches crisis levels will no doubt be a larger topic this year among parents and policy makers because we all feel the need to respond more than ever.
It is easy to be paralyzed by the fear some want us to feel, but we can work through the chaos political hate has unleashed. We have to remember we are the people who define what we want the world to be like for ourselves and our children and make it so.
Note: Since this piece was written, there have been even more documented threats at Virginia schools. On September 19, 2024, the date of the letter (see below) from Fairfax County Schools Superintendent Dr. Reid regarding gun violence, it was hard to know what school shooting she was referring to when she said, "Recent news of another school shooting in our nation has deeply impacted our community," as there were a number of known incidents of gun violence at schools around that day, in addition to a threat in Palmyra, VA and a 6 year-old bringing a gun to a school in Orange, VA earlier in the week.
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