<p>I just received a call from DS’ large (3,000+) suburban high school that the kids are being sheltered and the school is on lockdown due to a bomb threat that was made on social media. Sadly, this is the second time in 3 years that there has been such an incident (the first threat was deemed highly credible, and school ended up being evacuated).</p>
<p>I have been in touch with DS via text, and he said this time is just the result of “some stupid kids”. I am wondering how common of an occurrence this is throughout the country. I consider our community to be very safe, yet we are now on our second bomb threat - yikes!</p>
<p>We’ve had a couple at our large (3000) suburban high school as well. The kids were put on lockdown, but nothing was found. They definitely react to any threat. I don’t like those types of calls from the school all the same.</p>
<p>Yes, multiple times, assuming you are not restricting it to bombs, but also including gun/shooting threats and the like in this. Middle and/or high school on lockdown due to something of this nature probably every other year. Mostly middle class community, pretty safe, 25% low SES.</p>
<p>Yes. It was a very vague threat (someone wrote the word “BOMB” on the wall of a bathroom stall), but they went into lockdown nonetheless. </p>
<p>We had a bomb threat every few weeks during the last semester of my senior year of high school - it got to be so frequent that we would just pick up our books and continue class outside. My daughter’s school is a large kind of urbanized suburban school (>3000); mine was a tiny rural school (<500).</p>
<p>Just as an aside, for three years in the early 70’s my jr./sr. high school had several bomb threats and pulled fire alarms every year. It was just a sign of the times. Nobody got upset, (well, the kids didn’t. Probably the teachers, police, and administrators did…). There was no way to get in touch with our parents or for our parents to get in touch with us, and no way for the school to notify the parents in a timely manner, either. I’m not sure how parents ever even knew about them unless we kids told them. No cell phones, no email, nothing. We all got an hour or two outside. Funny, I don’t remember any false alarms/bomb threats during the dead of winter, only on lovely days.</p>
<p>I never thought of bomb threats/fire alarms as anything more than a way to some kid to disrupt the school day.</p>
<p>My own kids have had a few false alarms/lockdowns at their schools over the years. Even though we recieve instant notifications from the administration, I’ve never given them a second thought. </p>
<p>“I never thought of bomb threats/fire alarms as anything more than a way to some kid to disrupt the school day.”
Usually they aren’t but it’s a little more concerning when kids at your local middle and high school have been shot.</p>
<p>Are you in Seattle?
My daughters high school is smack dab in the middle of an area that attracts miscreants and students have been killed in the parking lot of the neighboring community center.</p>
<p>Our entire school district doesn’t even have 3000 kids, but even in our small rural community we have had bomb threats. Interestingly, they usually come on the first day back after a long weekend. Nothing is ever found, and the culprits are always caught and charged accordingly. Still, we have to take it seriously as the one time it’s disregarded could be the one time it’s real.</p>
<p>We’ve had none at all… but we’re in the middle of a middle-class suburban area.</p>
<p>Oddly enough though - our school is perfect location for someone wanting to try something, a gas station down the road, and a highway like 60 seconds away.</p>
<p>First day at a new school. I arrived to pick them up to find local police, marines, sheriff’s department, guard dogs, helicopters because the bomb suspect was a marine from the neighboring base. Students were evacuated to the football field until they could check and clear the gyms, then moved inside. It was about 104 degrees, kids were fainting, they gave them bottled water but there was no shade.</p>
<p>The next day they had a power outage.</p>
<p>The next day they cancelled school and said they would start over the next week.</p>
<p>Exactly where my school was, and in the mid '70’s, especially on a nice spring day, bomb threats were not uncommon. Except for the occasional cherry bomb down the toilet, I don’t recall any actual bombs.</p>
<p>My kids school had none that I recall.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any bombs that have been found after threats. Usually a bomber doesn’t threaten, and a warner doesn’t bomb, but you can’t really just assume that will be the case.</p>
<p>Bomb threats are nothing new. What’s new is the minute by minute updates and the whole concept of lockdowns. When I was a sophomore in HS in the late 1970s, someone called my tiny private high school every single day for a week with a bomb threat. By that Friday, we were so sick of the disruption that half the student body walked out en masse and went to the beach. It turns out the perpetrator was a student using a pay phone. Today, there would have been a lockdown, but the call would have been traced the first day.</p>
<p>Last year, in the span of maybe a month and a half, my school (small rural/suburban/heavily middle class) had one shooting threat, two bomb threats, and a ricin threat. We went through school as normal during the shooting threat, but an extra police officer (bringing the total to 2) was brought in and others were called in from neighboring police stations for the two elementary schools in the district.</p>
<p>The first bomb threat was actually really scary though, our principal came on the loud speaker and ordered us to proceed through an evacuation drill but told teachers to leave their doors open, which is not typical procedure. We were outside for about forty five minutes before the teachers told us what was going on, and then the district brought in all the buses and we were bused home for the day, while they brought in bomb sniffing dogs to search the school. </p>
<p>Luckily though, the culprit was discovered after he made the ricin threat. That day we left early too, and I’m pretty sure federal agents came to the school that day too… </p>
<p>We had several bomb threats at my h.s. in the late 70’s. We all had to exit the school and stand in the parking lot til we got the “all clear” to go back inside. That was in a very small town.</p>
<p>We now live in an upper middle class suburb. The newest h.s. in our town is populated by the most affluent kids in town. That school had two bomb threats in one week last fall. It happens everywhere.</p>
<p>So today’s threat apparently came from a site called Yik Yak, which I had never heard of. “No profile, no password, it’s all anonymous,” reads its website. Just what we need…</p>
<p>I never feared that it was a legitimate threat, but being on lockdown was a total drag for the kids. They were stuck in whatever room they were in when the lockdown began for 4 hours. DS said some kids were going to the bathroom in the classroom sinks - disgusting, but there weren’t a lot of options. </p>
<p>It seems from this thread that these things aren’t all that uncommon, but I never had a bomb threat at my high school, and none of the high schools in our surrounding communities have had one that I can recall. S2 will be a freshman next year, and I hope his experience is less eventful.</p>
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