[00:01] Justin Baeder:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.
[00:06] Announcer:
Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Baeder. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:15] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
I'm your host, Justin Baeder, and I'm honored to be joined today by Dr. Amy Klinger and Amanda Klinger Esquire of the Educators School Safety Network.
[00:25] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:27] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So we're here today to talk about bomb threats, something that so many of us in our profession have had to deal with perhaps more than once, perhaps more than once in the same week. And I understand there's quite a body of research that you've done and that you've immersed yourself in to understand the nature of those kinds of challenges that we face in schools and the best ways to respond to them. So I wonder if, Dr. Klinger, you want to kick things off by just kind of framing the challenge that school administrators face around bomb threats.
[01:03] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Yeah, we've been doing ongoing research for about three years on bomb threats in schools that really started largely because we had so many people approaching us saying, you know, what am I supposed to do? I don't know what I'm how to handle these things. And what we really find ourselves, we find administrators in this very untenable position of having to make decisions about what to do for a bomb incident with really virtually no training. So most schools have not provided training. There isn't really very much training out there that's specific to educators. And that disconnect is really significant because first responders, fire law enforcement folks, have had a good amount of training on bomb incident management, but school folks have not.
[01:49]
But yet school people are the ones, especially administrators, who find themselves having to make decisions about how valid is this threat? What should we be doing? How much should we be communicating? Are we supposed to evacuate? Are we supposed to search? Are we not supposed, should we cancel class?
[02:05]
And all of these things with really, without one minute of training to do so. And so it's kind of like canceling school for snow. No matter what you do, someone is not going to be satisfied. And combined with that is the problem that most schools have really outdated protocols. They have, if they even have protocols about bomb threats, they're looking at it like a 1980s bomb threat when the bomb threats of today are very different in their inception, where they come from, how they're delivered, what they mean. And then probably the third problem is is everyone is looking at this from a bomb threat perspective as opposed to detonations.
[02:46]
We have detonations occurring in schools at a significantly higher rate than people think. And so we can't just be planning for a bomb threat. We have to be thinking about a bomb detonation as well.
[02:58] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
And I will definitely echo what you just said about the lack of training. You know, I've had, I would say, lots of safety training, but nothing specifically about what to do. You know, it's always kind of call someone else who's had more training. And if you're in a situation where it's just you. Yeah, I think that is one that we definitely need to think about. So one of the things that comes first to my mind is.
[03:20]
not having any training on this, is the possibility that a bomb threat is really just a way to get people outside, either for prank purposes or nefarious purposes that are even worse than, you know, than the bomb threat itself. There's definitely, it crosses my mind that, you know, somebody could be outside waiting for students or for people to evacuate the building. So what's the right way to approach that?
[03:43] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Well, but I think that really requires sort of a fundamental shift. And that's what I said earlier about the 1980s bomb threat. You know, we think of bomb threats, most people think of bomb threats as, you know, back in the day, some kid at the payphone laughing, saying something, hanging up just because he wants to get out of the algebra test. And while we do see a significant percentage of the threats coming from within the organization, meaning from the students. We also see a good percentage of them coming from actors outside. So it's not just a kid trying to get out of a class.
[04:17]
It's somebody trying to create disruption, to create chaos, to create fear. Sort of a terrorist sort of mentality of I'm going to mess up what this organization is doing. I'm going to make people uncomfortable and afraid. and anxious about what's happening. And not always with the intent of harming them directly, but with the intent of creating this sort of chaos. And we see that in the fact that about a third, roughly 25 to 30% of all bomb threats happen in elementary schools.
[04:47]
So it's not kindergartners picking up a payphone and calling. There's someone else from outside who is acting on the organization and trying to create this chaos. And so there are a lot of fears of, Where are we going to evacuate to and what does that mean? And is there someone that's interested in doing something else? I mean, even the most basic idea of we evacuate to the parking lot, let's say. So we're going to move all the kids outside to the parking lot.
[05:12]
Where do you think the most likely place for an explosive device would be? It's not going to be in a kid's backpack. It's going to be in a car sitting out in the parking lot. So the way that we respond is oftentimes very counterproductive. to preventing harm or preventing additional bomb threats. So you're right to think about that as being a much larger issue than just some kid doesn't feel like taking an algebra test.
[05:37] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Well, I'm glad you mentioned the actual possibility of detonation because in my mind, it's too easy to go to the, oh, it's just a crank call kind of thing. What does some of the statistics or what does some of the research say on actual bombs? Because I assume at some level, some percentage of bomb threats are backed by an actual bomb.
[05:55] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
What does the research say on that? were never accompanied by a threat. So it's really looking at almost two distinctly different issues. You have threats, which almost always are just threats, but they're still disruptive. They're still anxiety inducing. There's still a lot of problems associated with it.
[06:27]
And then you have this other piece, which is suspicious items and actual devices that detonate in the school. And we're not always looking at both of those equally. We're looking at just one and not really dealing with the other when they both occur with a fairly high level of frequency.
[06:43] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Yeah, and I think it's maybe important to note, so in the research that we do, and the reason that we are doing this research is because there is no national database on this that's mandated reporting. You know, there is a BATS's acronym database for law enforcement to report this, but it is completely voluntary. So their information about threats, and they openly talk about this, that they know it's not accurate because it's if a law enforcement official wants to come in and say, hey, this thing happened in my school, they can. So that's the reason that we started doing this research. So what's really, I think, sort of troubling for me is if you look at our data for last school year, 16, 17, you know, we have two devices, two detonations and 24 suspicious items. If you look at the BATS data, this again, you know, completely voluntary reporting, they have 18 detonations in schools last year and how they're tracking 18 and we're only tracking two detonations in two devices.
[07:39]
So this number is this very sort of nebulous concept, but The fact that law enforcement officials are saying there were 18 detonations in school last year, it's a not negligible problem. So as kind of a thinking framework, I think that's really important to understand that we're really talking about two related but also distinct problems of threats and actual devices that may or may not detonate. Is there a good... you know, universal first step if there is either a threat or a, you know, suspicious item or a detonation.
[08:11]
Because I think we tend to go on instinct when, you know, when we're in the moment. And that, you know, obviously is why training is so important.
[08:18] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Yeah. I think the universal, you hit it. The universal is planning and preparation in advance, not winging it, not going, huh, I found myself in this situation. I wonder what I need to do. It's planning for it because you know it's going to happen. We're averaging seven threats a day.
[08:34]
between five and seven bomb threats a day, it's going to happen. So we should be already planning and preparing and having protocols in place and providing training. So I think that is really so crucial for a lot of reasons. Number one, if you have a planned, measured response and you know how to assess the validity of the threat and you're working collaboratively with law enforcement to do so, and we have a plan in place, and everyone is calm and rational, and we have a communication plan and all those moving parts, our response is going to be very different than what the perpetrator wanted. The perpetrator wanted chaos, fear, anxiety, people running around criticizing each other, hysterical parents sobbing in the parking lot, fire and EMS running around, administrators looking like they don't know what they're doing.
[09:28]
That's what they were looking for. A measured, practiced response where we have a protocol, we know what to do, we're implementing it, we're responding but we're not hysterical, all that kind of stuff is very disappointing to the perpetrator because that's not what they were looking for.
[09:44] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
And I have a, if you're looking for universal best practices, if we're not talking about a threat, if we're talking about a suspicious device, don't touch it. Good rule. As an attorney by trade, we don't really get to give correct answers. You know, we don't get to say like absolute yes, no answers. But this is one specific instance where you can say, don't touch it. If there's a device and you are concerned about it, don't pick it up and take it to somebody.
[10:13]
The bomb squad, that's sort of their ultimate horror story is that people will pick up, I'm worried about this package and they'll pick it up and bring it to them. Don't touch it. If you are concerned about a package, move people away from the thing. And then we can work with the authorities and the folks who are able to assess, you know, if a device is an explosive device. Well, I'm thinking about a vague bomb threat, because I know a lot of the time when either it is a prank or it's intended to cause chaos and fear of a, you know, of a more malicious nature. Often, I mean, do you find that the threats are vague or are they, you know, in locker number 74, you'll find, you know, are they made more specifically or more vaguely to cause confusion?
[10:53] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Well, the more specific it is, the more alarming it is. The more specific it is, the more valid it is. And a lot of times that information isn't necessarily released, but that's really one of the key indicators is the more specific it is, the more I need to be concerned about that as opposed to, you know, bomb misspelled scrawled on the toilet paper holder in the bathroom that we don't even know how long it's been there is very different than a call that is very specific and says, You know, I know you're having an assembly today, there's a bomb that's going to go off, and that's very specific and much more concerning. So the specificity of the threat is really important.
[11:31] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
And that's the case for any type of threats. You know, we do training in threat assessment management, and that's, you know, looking at how specific, how plausible a threat is, any threat of violence, where you need to respond differently, you know, based on how, you know, plausible and realistic and time-bound and and all of those things to take into consideration. And so, you know, bomb threats are the same in that regard. And I know we probably can't get into a full-on safety training on a podcast here, but if there is a threat, often the first thing we do is call law enforcement. Is there any advice that, in your experience, local law enforcement tends to give that you know from your research to be bad advice that schools may hear from local law enforcement?
[12:13] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
No, I wouldn't say that. I can give you bad advice, but I don't know if it necessarily comes from law enforcement. But It is not a great practice to just go, well, it's just a threat. We're not going to do anything about it. Don't tell anyone. That's a terrible practice because people are always going to find out, and it's a very dangerous notion to just sort of cross your fingers and see what happens.
[12:33]
It's also really bad advice to automatically have a full-on evacuation, cancel classes, get parents in there, and all these other things, no matter what the threat. So it's bad advice to treat everything the same because not all threats are the same. And it's bad advice to automatically do something regardless of the situation, as opposed to having training and being able to collaborate with emergency responders. Okay. These are the things that we need to do because you're really looking at, you know, there's such a wide continuum. There's not anything that we can say, oh, this is a textbook case.
[13:08]
Although there are some things that happen quite frequently. For example, you know, a significant portion of the time the bomb threat is found written in the bathroom. Okay, well, that's a very different thing than someone calling from the outside. You know, we have a lot of social media involved in threats, although typically not bomb threats so much as more gun threats are delivered by social media. So, you know, there are some of these, and the copycat piece, you know, if you have one bomb threat, you're more likely to have another one. They do tend to cluster in copycats, especially depending on what the response was.
[13:43]
If it worked, if we all went out and sat in the stadium in the sun and had a party because we were evacuating for the bomb, you're probably going to get another one. So those sort of things are really what we kind of, again, have to all be addressed in this advanced planning. I think the worst advice is just wait and see what happens because that's a terrible piece of advice because we know it's going to happen and we know it's a year-round event. We know that it's something that is a reality right now. And so waiting to see what happens and crossing our fingers and hoping it's not us is a terrible piece of advice.
[14:19] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
One piece I wanted to make sure that we touch on is the communication aspect because I think locally we've had a few issues here where there was either some sort of threat or maybe something that was initially perceived as a threat that turned out not to be after it was investigated. But what happens every time is that somebody texts mom or dad from the classroom and then parents get on social media and soon parents start showing up at school saying, I want my kid, we're getting out of here. And chaos ensues, even if no official announcement has been made about anything, even if, you know, it's just the school safety officer and administrators who are involved. Somehow it always gets out to parents and the potential for chaos or at least people to be very dissatisfied with how we handle it is extremely high, in my experience as a parent and seeing these things get discussed on social media. So what are some steps that administrators can take to, you know, put first things first and not go into writing letters to parents while there's an active...
[15:17]
investigation ongoing. But you know, what can we do to kind of build that trust with parents, you know, that we are there to communicate with them, but still deal with the situation appropriately in the moment?
[15:27] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Well, without sounding like a broken record, I'm going to go back to this advanced planning of talking to parents before the heat of the moment before they're hysterical about their child safety. But having a discussion about this is what we're doing. We have a plan, we have training, we know what we're doing. And setting the stage beforehand that this is a safe place and we know what to do. And, you know, here's what we need you to do. Here's what we're going to do.
[15:52]
Having that calm, rational discussion, not in the heat of the moment, is a big one. Having the plans in place is a big one. You know, and I see these all the time. We work with schools and we study schools where they're getting, you know, it's a terrible PR nightmare. And almost always it's because they didn't have anything done in advance. So they were winging it, which is a terrible position to be in.
[16:14]
And they were also subscribing to the notion of, well, probably no one will know, which is absolutely false. In this day and age, people will know before you get the chance to think about what you're going to say. People will already know. So most of the schools we see that get into these PR nightmares, it's because they took those two fallacies to heart. They thought, well, we'll just kind of see what happens and wing it. And then nobody will know.
[16:37]
Well, those are two terrible mistakes to make. And so I think when you have a communication plan in place, you have a response plan in place, and you've trained everyone in how to do it, it's not enough to just write it on paper and feel better. You have to write it on paper and evaluate it and train people to do it. We even recommend having templates written in advance for communication so that when everybody is calm and rational and there's nothing going on, you can craft a message that makes sense, that's quick and concise, and have it ready to go and just sort of fill in the blanks and have it ready to go and push that communication out as quickly as the students are able to push that communication out. Now, that being said, I think you brought up a great point. There are always going to be folks that are going to show up hysterical to get their kids.
[17:24]
So I don't want any administrator to be, well, I'd love to respond to this problem, but I better hurry up and get a note out to parents. You're just going to have to put your priorities in place. And the priority is the safety of the kids first. And communication is a close second, but the priority is the safety of the kids. But when you have that plan in place and when you have put all the parts and you have them ready to go and everyone knows what to do, it goes so much smoother. People getting really anxious and critical is typically a reaction to the sense, which is probably accurate, that the school doesn't know what they're doing.
[17:58]
And we never want to be in the position, whether we're teaching reading or we're reacting to a bomb threat, we never want to be in the position that we don't really know what we're doing. We're just kind of going with it. And so I think that's really critical. You know, a principal would never do that with an assembly or a school lunch program or a literacy night. Why are we willing to do it with safety? That's very confounding to me that we're not willing to plan for this thing that, you know, parents don't care if the literacy night doesn't go well or they don't care if your scores drop or whatever.
[18:29]
They care if something happens to their kid in your school. And that should be the priority always.
[18:34] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
I don't think it's that they don't care. It's that what you, forgiveness. We talk about this, you know, that there are schools in this country that have had high profile events, you know, tragedies, and that is what they're known for. You know, and there is a person at Kent State University whose only job is to make Kent State University be known for something other than what happened there in the 70s. And so that asset of trust and reputation, you know, parents will never forgive you if something happens to their kid at your school. And that communication piece of you can't act like they'll never find out because they will.
[19:08]
And so you can either have parents be talking amongst themselves with the information that they made up or hearsay or what someone told them, or you can be constantly updating them with official communication. Well, and it strikes me that, you know, it's standard now for us to have the technology to communicate with parents. You know, we can text them, we can email them, we can send them a robocall, we can put something on our website and social media, often, you know, all at once with, you know, just one message and one click. But if we don't know what to say and when to say it, you know, the preparation, as you said, is a big part of our success there and the trust that we establish.
[19:45] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
And thinking about in advance what you want to say and You know, we don't want to provide an assurance that everyone is safe when we don't know that for sure. We want to say we are in the process of evacuating everyone. We need to do frequent communication, but it has to be accurate. It has to be accurate and it has to be honest.
[20:05] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
So let's talk a little bit about the training that you do through Educators School Safety Network. Talk to me a little bit about the process that you take schools and districts through to prepare them for situations that they may have to deal with.
[20:16] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Well, we're one of the very few organizations that has an education-based bomb incident management course for educators. And it's simply because we see this need. I am a career administrator. So I've spent my life in public schools as a building level administrator. There's so many moving parts to what you're trying to do in managing incidents, whether the incident is a threat or whether the incident is a suspicious package or an actual detonation. And so we really tried to fulfill this need by providing training that really looks at all the different parts of this.
[20:51]
Some of what we just discussed that we put into the training. You know, assessing the threat. How do we respond to the threat? Do we automatically evacuate or do we do something else? And what is an effective evacuation look like? And then we talk about the communication aspect of it.
[21:08]
What are we communicating? How are we putting that out there? We look at the language that we should have in our policies and procedures. And then we also talk about from an administrative viewpoint, how do we disseminate that out to our staff? What training do I need to provide for my staff so that they're able to respond effectively? And what do I need to work on with my students and my parents so that they know what we're doing and how to respond effectively?
[21:34]
So when we do a bomb threat training for people, it's not just here's the blast radius or here's the explosive capability. While we may spend a couple of minutes on that, it's really much more about how do I as an administrator fulfill my responsibilities and effectively respond when I'm faced with a threat or a suspicious package, or God forbid, a detonation. And so it's really much more about the logistics of that and the different moving parts that we have to plan for in advance. Even parent unification. I mean, you know, if we are going to cancel school because of this really valid threat, we now have to reunify, we have to evacuate, and then we have to reunify our students with their parents. And A significant portion of schools don't even have a parent unification plan.
[22:24]
And so there's a number of different parts. And so I think the good news is when you are improving your capability to respond to a bomb threat, you're also improving your capability to respond to other threats as well. So a parent unification plan is good for you, whether a tornado just took out your building or you have a bomb threat or you had a terrible violent event. All those things are going to require parent unification anyway. So it also enhances accountability. the ability to respond to other events.
[22:51] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Yeah. And I appreciate your perspective as an educator there because, you know, law enforcement is dealing with kind of a different set of issues and we do have a lot to think about. How are we going to get a thousand kids picked up by car if usually they ride the bus home or if usually there are all these different ways, you know, to get kids home. So.
[23:06] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Yeah. And that's one of my frustrations is that so much of school safety work is given from this law enforcement perspective where you cannot treat a safety event in a school as The same way a safety event at the mall or at an office building, because there are very unique circumstances and situations in schools. And so we cannot look at everything from a law enforcement perspective because a law enforcement guy may be very knowledgeable tactically and a whole lot of other things, but he has never sat behind that desk. He has never run that school. And so that's why we feel so passionately about the training that we do, because I've sat where you sat and I understand the demands you're up against. But we still need to be able to respond.
[23:49]
And so I think having that unique education perspective is so critical in all of this training.
[23:55] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Absolutely. And let's talk about the podcast a little bit. So you actually have a podcast on school safety called Free Period. Is that right? Yeah. So we have the School Safety Free Period podcast.
[24:06]
And we called it that because we take this work very seriously. And as part of our organization, you know, this is what we do full time. And there is the potential for it to be sort of disheartening, you know, researching about school violence and researching about school safety and doing this work can be sort of depressing. And so the free period is sort of our, you know, if you don't laugh a little bit every once in a while, you would cry. And so our goal with the school safety free period podcast is to have something that's a absurd things that have happened in schools and they're all true, which you would maybe suspect that they, sometimes they are too absurd to be true, but they are all true. And so we laugh a little bit and we poke a little bit of fun at the situations, but then we have a take, you know, always have a takeaway and there are lessons to be learned in some of these things that are just, you're just shaking your head.
[24:58]
Um, and then, you know, we, we find ourselves to be pretty funny. So I don't know, you know, how funny it is for other folks, but we have a good time.
[25:06] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Um, And I think the issue for me in the podcast is, you know, we see these stories in the media of, you know, the teacher said this or the principal did this thing and everyone goes, oh my gosh, they're so stupid. How could that possibly have happened? And oftentimes there are two sides to every story. And so it's really important, I think, to have a more nuanced discussion of what's happening in the school that led them to do this and what was happening in that the parent did this thing and what was happening that we ended up with law enforcement reacting in this way and really sort of not take this black and white, you're dumb, you're smart sort of approach to something that happens that's reported in, you know, 30 seconds in the media. And so I think that the podcast gives us an opportunity to kind of peel back the layers a little bit and sort of look at some of these situations that we all as administrators absolutely are going to find ourselves in.
[26:00]
and look at those and go, okay, what can we learn from this? What can we, what could we do differently? And what would have changed? And how would I approach that? And really kind of take it as a bit of an object lesson, because there's really only two types of administrators. There's the administrator that has faced a crisis and the one that's about to.
[26:18]
You don't get to be the administrator that 25 years later never had a crisis event, because that's not going to happen. And so this provides a means for us to kind of safely sort of dissect some of these situations and see what takeaways are there for people in the field.
[26:34] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
That's a great quote. You don't get to be the administrator that never has to deal with this. You're either the one who already has or is about to. Unfortunately, that is definitely the reality. So if people want to learn more about your work or listen to the podcast, where's the best place for them to find you online? Well, you can find us anywhere that you get your podcasts.
[26:54]
We have a podcast hosted on our website, and that might be a good starting point because we do have a lot of free resources there and a lot of information. And our research, if folks are interested in reading more about school-based bomb threats and incidents and that research in our States of Concern report. And so our website is just www.eschoolsafety.org. And you can find us on Twitter.
[27:18]
Dr. Klinger likes to write about 700 characters, and then I'm supposed to somehow tweet that for her. But you can find us there on social media, on Facebook and Twitter. But our website is probably a good place to find resources and more information. Dr. Klinger and Amanda Klinger, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.
[27:37] Justin Baeder:
Thank you.
[27:38] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
Thanks.
[27:40] Justin Baeder:
And now, Justin Baeder on high-performance instructional leadership.
[27:44] Amy Klinger & Amanda Klinger, Esq:
So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Amy and Amanda Klinger about school safety and specifically about bomb threats and how we respond to them? One thing I wanna highlight is that degree of preparation that sets us up for success when it comes to communication. You know, we have the technology, we have the auto dialer, we have the robo caller, we have the text messaging capabilities and the social media posting capabilities. But if we aren't prepared to use them to communicate with families effectively, they're not going to do much good because we're not going to have a lot of time in the moment. So if you've already made that investment to purchase that technology, if your district subscribes to some technology that allows you to communicate quickly with families, take the next step and get a communication plan together.
[28:35]
And I have to say, I was very fortunate in Seattle Public Schools to have a full-time safety department that put a lot of thought into this. And if you're in a smaller school or district that doesn't have a dedicated staff For that, I want to encourage you to check out the Educators School Safety Network. It's a nonprofit. You can find it at eschoolsafety.org, as we talked about in the show today.
[28:55] Announcer:
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