DETROIT — A lockdown imposed at Grosse Pointe North High School last week due to a false report of an active shooter threat will have an impact well beyond the 30 minutes students and staff were forced to hide and wait for the all-clear.
Steve Swartz says his 14-year-old daughter who was at North during the lockdown on Dec. 19 is still unpacking what happened.
"The class my daughter was in when the lockdown started, someone said it was a drill. The teacher started throwing things against the door. She said 'This is the real deal.' That obviously changes the tone," Swartz said. "My daughter was hiding in the back of the classroom with the biggest textbook she could find to cover her vital organs. The teacher was lying on the floor trying to console others.
"Even when nothing happened, it (was) just as traumatic as if an event had happened," Swartz said.
Swartz left work that Monday afternoon and immediately drove to the high school, which was jammed with worried parents like him. It wasn't until his daughter got home that all the emotions hit, Swartz said.
"This morning it was anxiety and anger and depression. Her best friend decided to stay home. We talked to her ... she opted to go," said Swartz, speaking to The Detroit News the next day. "She got into her first hour and showed me a video showing almost nobody in the class."
It's part of the fallout facing families and school staff in the days and weeks after a threat of violence disrupts the school day. Students may be reluctant to return to school or come back fearful, unable to focus and upset about the scare. Educators face their own anxiety and have to re-plan lessons. And as the district further investigates the incident, it will draw more staff, social workers and school liaison officers into meetings and further away from the focus of learning at school.
Educators say threats and false reports like the one at North steal two resources every school is in short supply of: time and peace of mind.
"When there is a school threat made ... it’s a ripple effect — there are so many places it touches," Novi schools superintendent Ben Mainka said of the four threats made in his Oakland County district this school year.
"It affects families in ways people don't see or realize. We have students who've struggled with anxiety. For them, it was even hard to come back to school, to gain the gumption. To have these types of situations, it's devastating to someone wrestling with their fears."
Cost of threats
Occasional threats have shut down and disrupted schools for years, but since the 2021 attack at Oxford High School, the number of copy-cat and false threats has spiked, especially in the last four months.
Roseville schools Superintendent Mark Blaszkowski said his Macomb County district has received some threats this school year, but all were deemed not credible by law enforcement before they disrupted school. That's only because they came after school hours and police were able to vet them before school had to be closed.
But when the 4,300-student district has had to go into lockdown or shelter in place in past school years, the impact on everyone is visible, Blaszkowski said.
"It's exhausting to staff. It lowers morale. It increases anxiety for staff," he said. "If students have a sense of fear of being in school, it stops their brain from learning. You have to access their basic needs before they can learn. If they are in constant fear, you won't be able to penetrate their brains."
In Macomb County, Prosecutor Peter Lucido said threat cases have gone up at an "alarming" rate to almost 50 cases where criminal charges have been filed this year, up from 25 cases in 2021. Lucido has said that he plans to hold parents financially responsible for their children's threats, though he has not done this in any cases yet, his office confirmed last week.
Blaszkowski has two threat cases in his school district which remain under review by prosecutors. At the same time, the district must make its own decision about whether to suspend or expel students who make threats.
"Everybody is on edge, and we have to err on the side of safety," Blaszkowski said. "We have been removing students from school. We tell parents we have to see what happens with the court case. And we offer a readmittance later if it's warranted."
Blaszkowski says he also sees a financial cost to the threats related to added security measures and increased staff.
"The costs for a second police liaison (is) about $150,000 with benefits. Increased social workers and security personnel at high school, about $200,000. ... Sending personnel to training pulls resources from schools on those days. It consumes bond money for us," he said.
Mainka of Novi says communication demands are massive on schools to tell parents what is going on when a threat is made against a school. That takes time away from other tasks educators and administrators would prefer to focus on.
"There is no way we are going to beat kids texting their parents when we are in shelter. If I take 30-40 minutes to communicate, parents become concerned. There is a demand on school administrators to do that immediately," Mainka said. "Phones start blowing up. Secretaries in administration are all getting phone calls. Administrators (are) getting phone calls."
Still, Maika says it's safety first, and communications second.
The emotional toll on children and staff is also a huge concern for all educators.
"The staff are holding a lot together. They are thinking of their training. No learning is occurring. A lot of kids at high school, they have siblings at other buildings. They are worried about them not learning, too," he said.
Mainka said those who call in false threats need to understand how it impacts everyone.
"The students absolutely hate it. It's infuriating. Their entire day was disrupted. Others say, 'It makes me feel like I can't come to school,'" Mainka said. "It's harmful to the collaborative feel of a building. Students are vocal about their disdain for this. They aren't afraid to say that. If you walk through the hallway, they are rolling their eyes. They are sick of it. It's a traumatic disruption to their lives and practices."
A learning experience
Schools are already dealing with closures and disruptions from outbreaks of the flu and COVID-19. Add in snow days and then false threats and catching up becomes increasingly difficult, says Wendy Zdeb of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals.
"(School threats) can impact and continue to cause learning losses to increase. This is something we are all catching up on," Zdeb says. "Most kids enjoy going to school. They don’t want dances and sporting events canceled."
"I would support any type of consequences that would make this stop," Zdeb said of the threats and false reports. "You would think that jail time and the cost of court would be a deterrent. It's unfortunate it's coming to that."
Tina Kerr, executive director of the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators, says every threat is a learning experience for administrators. They have prompted districts to focus more on threat assessment, security, staff training and mental health resources.
"You learn from when a threat comes in everything you did right or didn’t do right and try to deter that second threat from coming in," Kerr said. "Our districts take every threat seriously and they go back to the educating of the kids."
Sarena Shivers, deputy executive director of professional learning and member services at Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators, said every teacher works to have the understanding and skills to protect their kids.
"The more schools get trained and better equipped to deal with threats when they occur, the better they have their arms around the impact to students and staff," Shivers said.
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