By Deb Risden
In September, some school districts in El Paso County, statewide and others around the country reported multiple, unsubstantiated threats to school safety. David Watson, El Paso County Colorado School District 49 director of safety and security, said D 49 also received a threat at that time; he said they experience threats several times a year.
“The latest threat last month turned out to be nationwide,” Watson said. “Our school resource officers were able to investigate it rather quickly and determine it was not credible.” He said a high percentage of threats are not credible or turn out to be false rumors.
When they do receive a threat, Watson said the district follows an established process and procedure.
“Our process is collaborative. When a threat is received, we do a quick initial assessment of it and try to verify the source,” he said. Watson said verification is sought through different means such as social media searches and interviews.
Watson said the school district will immediately begin communication with their school resource officers and law enforcement. “If need be, our law enforcement can conduct house visits, talk with parents and take whatever steps necessary to help determine the validity of this type of threat,” he said. “We will immediately look for how widespread the threat is, how many Safe2Tell reports have been received and how much exposure it has received on social media. We check platforms where parents are potentially talking about it and have expressed concern.”
All threats are taken seriously for a reason.
Education Week (edweek.org) reported as of Oct. 8 there have been 30 school shootings in 2024 that resulted in deaths or injuries. In 2023, there were 38, down from 51 in 2022. Education Week’s analysis includes any incident in which a firearm was discharged on K-12 school property or on a school bus, either while school is in session or during a school event. (The shootings reported by Education Week do not include bullet wounds to the suspect or perpetrator.)
Watson said the district is continually evaluating school safety and security, including new tools and technology that can aid the process. In 2017, D 49 formed the Enhanced Security Community Advisory Council to explore how to improve security in the district. The ESCAC is comprised of district and school administrators, school staff, district support staff, parents, students and community members. “I’m proud to say the ESCAC is still going strong,” Watson said. “We have great representation from the community and encourage any parents that want to be a part of the safety and security process to be involved in ESCAC. We would like to have more parent involvement.”
Last year, the ESCAC members evaluated a new system called Raptor Emergency Management System. Watson said the system was implemented during the 2023-2024 school year in addition to the Raptor Visitor check-in system that is already in place at D 49 facilities. Raptor EMS includes a management dashboard for tracking emergency preparedness drills.
D 49 has a portable weapons detection system. Watson said, “It won’t be at every school, and we don’t ever anticipate it being a full-time daily procedure implemented district wide.” He said it is used on an as-needed basis. “We can deploy a mobile unit to a location that has received a security threat,” he said. “We have an all-hands-on-deck philosophy with lots of security and support personnel. We go down to one entryway access in the building and then we can deploy this weapons detection system equipment to add another tool to our safety and security options.”
Watson said the weapons detection system is the same used by government agencies and has technology allowing customization of detection settings. “Sensitivity can be adjusted for exactly what we are looking for,” he said, adding that the goal is not to delay the school day but to do due diligence to ensure everything is safe. The system includes one unit with two hand wands and can also be used at board of education meetings, athletic or other extracurricular events and activities when needed.
Social media can be an asset when investigating threats. Watson said, “When students are using platforms to communicate, there is usually a digital footprint.” When the September incident of threats came in, D 49 used social media and Google to learn that the threat was impacting school districts around the nation. “We took an image of a posting, put it into a Google search and learned that the exact same message, word-for-word came up in other states,” he said.
Watson said social media also allows the district to communicate with the community and parents. “It allows us to reach them on platforms like Facebook and X and have constructive dialog. It’s important to our overall mission in D 49.”
D 49 encourages use of the Safe2Tell platform to report any suspicious activity anonymously. Watson said there are three ways to use the system: a phone call to 877-542-7233, Safe2TellCo.org and the Safe2Tell Colorado app.
“The bottom line is these threats disrupt and instill fear into our staff, students and community,” Watson said. “We have to do our best to diligently look into each one collaboratively with our law enforcement partners. We want to be sure we are doing right by our community. It all goes back to providing that peace of mind and a safe learning environment.
