Bomb threats in Broward schools won’t trigger automatic evacuations, new directive says

Sun Sentinel | By Scott Travis | May 20, 2024

Broward schools should no longer automatically evacuate for bomb threats, under a new directive that instructs principals and law enforcement to assess how credible the risk is.

The goal is to reduce campus disruptions caused by a recent spike in bomb threats, according to a May 10 memo to principals from Jaime Alberti, chief of safety and security for the school district.

The new procedures are supported by a national school safety expert but criticized by a district principals’ group, who said principals may continue evacuations because they are not trained to determine the credibility of threats.

The memo came a day after an evacuation at Fort Lauderdale High interrupted students who were taking a required test for a college-level course offered by Cambridge University.

The district has faced complaints about how past evacuations have been handled, with students, staff and volunteers often standing outside in the heat for long periods of time with no water or access to restrooms, said Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union.

District data shows that as of April 30, the district had 175 incidents of a major disruption on campus — the category used to record bomb threats in school safety reports. That put the district on track to surpass the 184 reported incidents for the entire 2022-23 school year. A district spokeswoman said she’s not aware of any bomb threats in recent years that turned out to be credible.

“Due to the recent increase in bomb threats across the District, we are implementing an immediate change in our bomb threat response protocol to enhance the safety and security of our schools,” Alberti wrote in the memo. “Effective immediately, we will not automatically evacuate in response to a bomb threat when the threat has come in via telephone; email, or text.”

Instead, the threat will be evaluated, first by a school leader, the memo states.

“Upon receiving any bomb threat, the designated school decision maker (usually the principal or a designated campus administrator) will first assess the credibility of the threat in coordination with the Broward County Public Schools Police Chief or designee and local law enforcement,” Alberti wrote.

Evacuation decisions “will be based on a thorough credibility analysis. … Immediate evacuation will be considered only if the threat is deemed highly credible after a preliminary assessment,” Alberti wrote.

While the vast majority of bomb threats turn out to not be credible, each should be “treated seriously and investigated thoroughly,” said Kenneth Trump, a national school safety expert. But that doesn’t mean an evacuation is needed. He said unnecessary evacuations “without clear cause can put children in less safe situations.”

“The longstanding best practice, which was reinforced as far back as least in the Columbine era, has been to NOT automatically evacuate when bomb threats are received by schools,” said Trump, president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services. “We stress that school leaders need to assess and then react, not react and then assess.”

But the assessment should not be the responsibility of principals, Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals and Assistants Association, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

She called Alberti’s new directive “totally unacceptable” and sent him an email recently asking him to change the protocols.

“I am hopeful that you will remove any and all references to principals in this document,” she wrote to Alberti. “Principals have zero training in the detection and assessment of bomb threats. That is and always has been the exclusive preview of law enforcement.”

She said that while principals will always cooperate with law enforcement, “they will not in any way be making decisions regarding the veracity of the threat or the means to respond to the threat.”

She told the Sun Sentinel if principals are forced to make the decision on whether a threat requires evacuation, “they will default to evacuation immediately.”

District spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion said the memo doesn’t say principals are the decision-makers: “It states the decision is made collaboratively between three parties: the principal or designated campus administrator, BCPS Schools Police Chief or designee, and local law enforcement,” she said.

The memo ends by saying that decision of whether to evacuate goes to law enforcement.

“Please communicate this change promptly to your staff and ensure they are aware that evacuations will only be initiated under guidance from the Broward County Public Schools Police and local law enforcement,” Alberti wrote.

The memo came a day after a bomb threat disrupted testing at Fort Lauderdale High.

On May 9, students were testing for the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education, a test required to get college credit for the classes. The tests are only given a few times a year and this was the last time it was being offered this school year.

District officials said Fort Lauderdale Police notified the school of a bomb threat they received by phone involving the school, which prompted an evacuation of students to the Aquatic Center across the street, Concepcion said.

As for how students can make up the test, the school “has applied for a special circumstance with Cambridge and will work with that organization on next steps,” Concepcion said.

She said the Fort Lauderdale High incident is not what triggered the memo. “The protocol had already been under review before its release on May 10,” Concepcion said.

The district has had several other high-profile incidents this school year involving bomb threats.

In December, Jayson Arlon Richardson, a former Broward teacher’s assistant, was arrested after detectives say he made multiple false shooting and bomb threats at elementary and middle schools across the county, including two Broward elementary schools he was fired from. He has pleaded not guilty.

In September, students waited at a park near South Plantation High for hours while Plantation police swept the school looking for possible explosives. None was found, according to reports.