Schools silent on bomb threats

Officials try a new approach, fearing last year's zero-tolerance publicity might have contributed to the problem.

By MELANIE AVE

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 24, 2001

TAMPA -- Last school year it was zero tolerance. This year, add a code of silence.

Three students have been arrested or are suspects in connection with bomb threats since Hillsborough schools reopened two weeks ago, but authorities have kept quiet about them.

One student arrested was a 9-year-old at Valrico Elementary.

Last school year, school and law enforcement officials heavily promoted a zero-tolerance crackdown to persuade students not to make bomb threats.

Students caught making bomb threats would be expelled from the school system, arrested and possibly treated as adults.

Authorities had hoped silence would squelch copycat threats. It appears to have had little effect.

Seven bomb threats have been made during the first 12 days of the school year, an average of more than one every other day. In Pinellas County, where schools began Wednesday, no bomb threats have been publicly disclosed.

All 164,000 students in Hillsborough were evacuated Thursday while officials scoured every school for bombs. They found nothing, and no arrests were made. It was the first countywide evacuation this school year.

Superintendent Earl Lennard said he doesn't want a repeat of last year's record-setting 138 threats. More than half of those occurred in the last three months of the school year.

He hopes the silent treatment eventually will reduce the number of threats.

"I've asked our staff and our people not to promote this in such a way that it would become sensational," he said. "We don't want ... to promote it to a level that escalates it like we had last year. ... Clearly some of this was caused by the notoriety it was receiving."

Experts say there is a fine line between curbing the number of threats and informing parents when school safety is at issue.

"I believe there is a responsibility there, especially if the threat is verified as a serious threat," said Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center in California.

School district spokesman Mark Hart said parents are informed by letter or phone calls when threats are considered serious and warrant evacuations. But mostly, he said, threats are a law enforcement issue.

"We're going to handle bomb threats with great care this year," he said.

Hillsborough sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said her agency stopped notifying news media about bomb threat arrests because it didn't want to contribute to the problem.

"We kind of stepped back and took a look at it and realized by promoting the arrests, maybe we were promoting it to kids to make the bomb threats," she said. "Unfortunately you have kids who say, "Hey, that's pretty cool. I want to do that too.' "

PTA leader Penny Dean supports the new policy.

"I think kids are looking for attention, and giving publicity of it is giving them attention," said Dean, vice president of the Hillsborough County Council of PTA/PTSA. "The kids come home, and that's the first thing they tell you, "Mom, we had another bomb threat.' They're sick of it."

School Board member Candy Olson said she is sure publicity increases the threats.

Some students hear or read about other kids getting arrested for making threats and decide they want to do it too.

"It's not something I'm anxious to keep secret," Olson said. "But it's to the point where there been so many of them, it's not news."

-- Melanie Ave can be reached at (813) 226-3400 or melanie@sptimes.com.

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