Imagine getting a phone call from the school principal informing you that your son has been suspended indefinitely because he has threatened to shoot his classmates. Shocked and heart pounding, you ask, “What happened?” The principal simply says, “We can talk when you get here.”
Yet after you pick up your child, you are even more perplexed. The principal tells you that several classmates reported that your son threatened to shoot them. Your son claims they are making up a story to get him into trouble.
It seems like the principal is overreacting, but he says he has to make sure everyone in the school is safe. You are told that the police will be coming to search your house and that you must obtain a psychological evaluation of your son before he can return to school.
As clinical psychologists and researchers who have devoted our careers to preventing youth violence, this is an all-too-familiar situation. After shootings like the one at Apalachee High school, there is a predictable surge in arrests of students for making threats. At least 700 students have been arrested nationwide following the Georgia school shooting.
School authorities think they must remove a potentially dangerous student to err on the side of safety. They are choosing overreaction to avoid underreaction.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Yet common sense, supported by research, shows that most student threats do not pose a serious risk of violence.
Young people often act impulsively and make statements they do not mean. Schools using a violence prevention strategy known as “behavioral threat assessment and management,” can effectively support safety without turning to overreaction.
According to a University of Virginia study of behavioral threat assessment in 3,400 Florida schools, most threats can be resolved without resorting to school removal or arrest.
In a sample of 22,000 cases, 82% of threats evaluated by the school threat assessment team were found to be unfounded rumors, jokes or expressions of frustration (“I could kill you for that”). About 13% were serious threats to fight, typically referred for counseling. Only 5% were considered very serious substantive threats involving a threat to shoot or kill someone that required law enforcement involvement and development of a safety plan.
About a quarter of the students had a short-term suspension (typically a few days), fewer than 2% were expelled and fewer than 1% were arrested. In 94% of cases, the threat was resolved without violence. There were some fights, but no school shootings or homicides.
Overreaction is fueled by a widespread belief that school shootings are pervasive and that schools are dangerous places. This fear has been amplified by the use of state-mandated school shooter drills that are often so frightening that President Joe Biden issued an executive order to set standards that make them less traumatic.
Statistically, school homicides are rare.
With nearly 130,000 schools in the United States, 15 experienced a school shooting homicide in 2023, making the expected frequency of a homicide in the average school about once every 8,666 years. Although homicide has become a leading cause of death among school-age youth, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that less than 2% of these homicides occur at school, making schools among the safest places from gun violence in the United States.
Underreaction to a serious threat can have tragic consequences, but overreaction is harmful too.
Multiple studies have found that when students are suspended, they are more likely to fall behind academically, disengage from learning and eventually drop out. Moreover, the Secret Service study of school shootings found that it is safer to monitor and support a troubled student than to remove that student from school, leaving them to act on their own. Parents should not be forced to remove their child from school and find someone to do an evaluation.
As we continue to mourn the losses at Apalachee High School, we must take care to prevent further violence using the most effective measures available.
Twenty-three states, including Georgia, currently require or encourage their schools to use a threat assessment team to conduct their own evaluations. Behavioral threat assessment and management focuses on violence prevention and safety planning that contextualizes threats within the actual risks at hand. It also reduces disparities in school discipline outcomes based on race and special education status.
The use of nationally recognized standards and practices can help protect a fearful community from both the devastating impact of a shooting and the damaging outcomes of overreaction.
Sharmila B. Mehta is clinical director of the Inpatient Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Services at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School. Dewey Cornell is a professor of education at the University of Virginia who has conducted research and developed a program for the use of behavioral threat assessment for student threats of violence.
