'Parents have to talk with their kids about this': District and law enforcement officials sound off after troubling week at local schools

More than a month after the school shooting in Parkland that left 17 dead, school and law enforcement officials in St. Johns County continue to grapple with what they describe as a heightened level of anxiety in the schools that they worry has been exacerbated recently by local events.

After a week that saw at least three fake bomb threats at county schools and one student's arrest, many are hoping that the coming week off for Spring Break will give everyone a chance to collect themselves before coming back for the final weeks of the school year.

"It's been a long month, it's been a tough month," schools Superintendent Tim Forson said Friday afternoon as he sat down to talk about recent events with other district officials and Lt. Mike Strausbaugh, who serves as the school liaison for the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.

Just two days before, the Sheriff's Office had arrested a 14-year-old St. Augustine High School student after an investigation into two threats at that school.

The student, whose name has not been released, is now facing two second-degree felony charges for "'false reporting of a bomb threat' and a paralleled charge for the stated 'Use of a Firearm in a Violent Manner,'" a news release from the Sheriff's Office said.

The charges, according to the release, stem from two separate incidents, including one just after the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

In that incident, law enforcement and school officials initiated a "scaled response" after someone found "School Shooting Happening at ___ PM Today" scrawled on a wall. The second incident, on Wednesday, prompted a lock-down at the school after someone found the words "Bomb on Campus" written on a wall, the release said.

The same day of the arrest, officials evacuated Switzerland Point Middle School after a bomb threat was found in a restroom on campus. Students were allowed to return to class after a search by the Sheriff's Office found nothing in the building.

The day before that, a threat at Bartram Trail High School — also determined to be false — prompted an evacuation of the building and early dismissal in light of forecasted severe weather that afternoon.

Forson wasted little time after that incident, sending a letter addressed to parents and families calling recent threats "disappointing."

"It is disruptive and endangers the community every single time resources are diverted to respond to fake threats," he wrote, and urged parents to speak with their children "about reporting behaviors that could be threatening to others."

Forson said Friday that Bartram Trail was a particularly difficult situation because it happened on a day full of troubling news with the added component of threatening weather.

"Every situation is unique and this one was very unique," he said.

Tuesday, Forson pointed out, was also the day of a school shooting in Maryland and authorities in Texas were still looking for a suspect responsible for sending explosive packages in the Austin area.

All of that just added to the anxiety that people were still feeling after Parkland, making the Bartram threat all the more inappropriate, he said.

"When people fabricate the threats ... they just create a climate in schools that put people in fear," said senior director for school services, Paul Abbatinozzi, who joined Forson on Friday. "It's reckless behavior."

Kyle Dresback, also seated at the conference table in Forson's office, said that in the age of social media and rapid communication that fear isn't contained within the walls of the schools either.

"It's expands from not just the school environment but to the community," the associate superintendent for student support services said. "They are also anxious."

Forson said it's that cost to the community, not only in terms of anxiety, but also in law enforcement resources expended for the response, that concerns him.

"It is really bothersome that there are some children who don't recognize the severity of their actions," Forson said. "When Bartram Trail is going on, the rest of the county is vulnerable. It's not fair to every other citizen of St. Johns County."

Sheriff's Office spokesman Chuck Mulligan said it is difficult to assign a dollar figure to a bomb threat response, but it requires a good deal of manpower, including overtime required to call in off-duty deputies with K-9s. He said the figure was probably around $10,000 but could range higher.

St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar said his staff will be meeting with district officials in coming days to review how they respond to the hoax threats.

Sitting in his office the day after the Maryland shooting, Shoar said fake bomb threats in schools are not necessarily new — that in years past they would often happen just before testing sessions or the day before prom — but acknowledged the new context of the threats in an age when school shootings are often in the news.

"You could almost predict when they were going to happen," he said of the old threats. "You can't look at these through the same lense."

At a time when school security is on nearly everyone's mind, the challenge is keeping response protocols appropriately updated to deal with the threats, he said.

It's far from the only challenge facing the school district and law enforcement.

The district has stepped up emergency drills at its schools, and community relations chief Christina Langston, who also sat in on Friday's meeting with Forson, said parents could expect more notification about those in order to try to "diminish that level of anxiety."

And apart from the three threats last week, Mulligan said the Sheriff's Office has looked into between 20 and 30 reported circumstances since Parkland that underscore the current level of anxiety and awareness of recent events.

"Some of which turned out not to be threats at all," he said, characterizing some as one student overhearing a conversation between other students that was misconstrued as a threat because it had been about Parkland or related topics.

There was also some momentary anxiety involving social media after Pedro Menendez High School had to be evacuated when a teacher burned some popcorn. The Sheriff's Office was quick to respond that day with it's own social media messaging to calm nerves.

And Strausbaugh said there have been two troubling incidents at district schools where students were "falsely accused" by peers and later cleared after deputies looked into circulating rumors.

Dealing with incidents like those adds another layer of complexity with its own set of challenges, though.

While officials obviously want to put an end to the fake threats that disrupt the community and increase anxiety, they don't want to quell the flow of information from students that could tip them off to a credible threat.

It's walking that fine line where Strausbaugh said the help of parents is most needed.

"If you hear it we want you to tell us," Strausbaugh said is his simple message to students, adding that parents need to be engaged with their children about discussing their concerns and what is appropriate in school.

"Parents have to talk with their kids about this," he said, echoing Forson's letter. "Particularly after an event that shakes society to its core."