A total of eight threats phoned into schools across Putnam County Tuesday, including seven in the county system, taking resources and time to address.
Putnam County Schools Deputy Director Tim Martin said the district treats every threat with serious concern even when officials suspect the reports are phony from the beginning. Martin said the fake threats on Tuesday forced law enforcement to do multiple sweeps of schools buildings across the district.
“It’s very disruptive, you know, because we take all of these things serious,” Martin said. “Even though we’re pretty sure that from the get-go that they were hoaxes, we’re still going to be serious about those things.”
Martin said the district responded to the reports of an intruder by initiating lockdowns and conducting thorough sweeps of every building. Martin said School Resource Officers and other officers checked hallways, restrooms, and every individual classroom to ensure no unauthorized persons were hiding on the campuses.
“We know that, again, the vast majority of these things are going to be hoaxes or are not going to be true,” Martin said. “But, you know, it only takes one. And so… we always want to be serious about everything we do in regard to safety.”
Martin said the presence of SROs in the buildings helps keep students calm and provided comfort to faculty during the security scare. Martin said while the district attempts to notify parents quickly, the immediate priority was securing student safety.
“It’s very frustrating that you’ve got people out there that obviously are not from our community,” Martin said. “You’re not talking about a kid that’s trying to get out of a test or something like that. This is somebody that’s doing this just to cause mischief or just to cause problems for other people, so that really is pretty frustrating.”
Martin said the district School Emergency Response Team (SERT) meets after every incident to evaluate the response and determine if protocols can be improved. Martin said law enforcement is currently working to track down the sources of the calls.
“The law enforcement ensures us that everything is being done that can be done to chase these people down,” Martin said. “And try to hold some people accountable for this and until that happens, you know, we’re just going to take care of kids and we’re going to do that the best way we can.”
Martin said the district will continue having discussions over the next few days to review the response to the recent series of threats.
