Civil penalties for parents whose children threaten schools could deter threats from occurring, a Florida Board of Education member suggested Tuesday.

A 14-year-old killed four and wounded nine in in September, setting off a wave of “copycat” school threats in Florida and around the nation. The increase in threats prompted sheriff’s departments and school districts in Florida to remind students and parents that threats are illegal and not a joke.

Tuesday, State Board of Education Member Ryan Petty echoed the superintendents and sheriffs: School threats are not a joke.

“When many of these perpetrators that made the threat were confronted by law enforcement, they seemed to think it was a joke,” Petty said in a brief interview with the Florida Phoenix during a break in a board meeting.

Petty’s daughter, Alaina, was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Students don’t seem to understand the seriousness of such threats and neither do parents, said Petty, adding that sometimes parents have been dismissive or unserious about responding to law enforcement pressing charges against their child who made a threat.

Petty said during his conversations with sheriffs and state attorneys they have told him they “are looking at options to hold parents accountable.”

During Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting at Tallahassee State College, Petty said parental accountability for school threats “may be something that the Legislature needs to take up next year.”

The cost of investigating threats, Petty said, can run to thousands of dollars each time officers are sent to schools and homes to investigate, investigate online, contact social media companies, and take other measures to ensure safety. Some sheriff’s departments have had to refocus detectives toward investigating school threats amid the “onslaught,” according to Petty.

Petty told the Florida Phoenix that he thinks parents might keep better track of what their child is doing online if they were civilly liable for school threats made by their children.

Following the shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia that killed four people, the with murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty to children.

In Michigan, the parents of a school shooter in prison for their role in four deaths. They were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

“I’m not proposing or advocating for anything that goes that far, but what I’m suggesting is that parents might be held responsible for the financial costs of the threats their kids are making, so the very real costs that law enforcement have in investigating these threats and determining whether or not they’re real or not,” Petty said.

More work needs to be done to determine which threats are hoaxes earlier on, to preserve resources for serious threats or other crimes, he said.

“Being able to filter the real threats from the jokes, I think, is an area that — I don’t know that there’s necessary legislation there. But it’s something that we need to figure out how to do because we can’t keep chasing hundreds of, you know, jokes.”

‘It’s your responsibility’

Petty said it can come down to parents and children being transparent about social media use.

“I’ve got a message for parents that are listening,” Petty said. “You need to understand what your kids are doing online. These threats are often made online over social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, and other facilities. It’s your responsibility to understand what your kids are doing on social media.”

Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. echoed that thought.

“I want to send a clear message to our students and to their parents: Threats of any kind will not be tolerated, and you will be prosecuted to the highest degree possible,” Diaz said.

Diaz said a “tremendous” number of threats have been made by “misguided students” and have “not been credible.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

As vice presidential candidate and Ohio Sen. JD Vance makes clear  to the public on the campaign trail, his fake claims have caused real panic at schools in his home state. 

As Vance and GOP presidential running mate Donald Trump spread a vile and racist rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are abducting and eating their neighbors’ pets, six local  temporarily after receiving bomb threats. Two area colleges were also pushed into remote learning after the Republican duo’s disinformation campaign prompted .

 were deployed to Springfield’s public schools Tuesday after they received dozens of bomb threats in the last week alone. 

“Our students, staff and school community  by senseless threats of violence,” district Superintendent Bob Hill said.

The false claims coming from Trump and Vance spurred a response from Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, who said the rumors are harmful and “need to stop.” Springfield officials have erected a security tower with surveillance cameras outside City Hall as the candidates double down on the unfounded claims despite the growing number of bomb threats against city agencies — 

Big picture: Schools are routinely haunted by copycat perpetrators. Now, the politically fueled disruption of schools in Ohio — and a mass shooting at Georgia’s Apalachee High School this month — have reportedly contributed to a national surge in these unnerving events. | 

In the news

More on the disinfo campaign trail: In a Moms for Liberty speech, Trump made the baseless claim that schools perform surgery on transgender youth. Children go to school and come home “a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.” | 

The Federal Communications Commission has opened applications for its $200 million cybersecurity pilot program, designed to defray school and library expenses for firewalls and other data security services. | 

• What they’re saying: “School districts and libraries across the country have proven to be prime targets for cybercriminals,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a media release. “The vulnerabilities in the networks are real — and growing.” 
• Big picture: A quarter of young people’s identities will be stolen before they turn 18 as cybercriminals run up major debt using the minors’ credit. | 

ByteDance bites back: Chinese-owned ByteDance, which runs the teen obsession/social media platform TikTok, was in a federal appeals court this week to fight a law that would force the company to sell the app or face a nationwide ban over national security concerns. | 

New Mexico officials have sued social media app Snapchat after an undercover investigation accused the platform of being a leading source “for sharing child sexual abuse material” and using an algorithm that “serves up children to adult predators.” | 

As social media platforms face scrutiny over their effects on youth mental health, Instagram is rolling out “teen accounts” that limit their screen time, the types of content they see and the people they’re able to message. | 

A free teletherapy program launched in New York City public schools could misuse students’ information and run afoul of state and federal student privacy laws, data security advocates allege. | 

School (in)Security exclusive: Education technology company AllHere, which built a much-hyped $6 million chatbot for the Los Angeles school district that allegedly violated students’ privacy, has filed for bankruptcy. | 

The Department of Homeland Security awarded a $450,000 grant to a gun violence research consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government to study mass shootings, including those in schools, and develop bystander intervention training to prevent assaults. The training will be piloted at 10 New York school districts. | 

Teachers split on active-shooter drills: Less than half of teachers said active-shooter drills have prepared them for a school shooting, according to a new RAND survey. More than two-thirds said the drills have had no impact on their perceptions of campus safety and just a fifth said they make them feel more safe. | 

The Charlotte, North Carolina, school district broke the law when leaders withheld records that detailed incidents of student rape and sexual assault, a court ruled. | 

An Oklahoma school resource officer was credited with using a tourniquet to save the life of a teenager who, in an act of apparent rage over bullying, punched through a school bus window, cutting an artery in his right arm. | 

Colorado student suspensions have surged 25% since 2018, as schools struggle with children’s post-COVID mental health challenges. | 

A West Virginia elementary school custodian was arrested on charges he stored a gun in his car in the campus parking lot and that an 11-year-old threatened to use the weapon to shoot a classmate and himself. | 

How a poppy seed salad from Costco upended a mother’s life: Inaccurate drug tests have taken a toll on parents nationwide, an investigation found, as they face scrutiny from — and sometimes lose their babies to — child protective services. | 

An Apalachee High School Spanish teacher describes how she kept her students calm during the deadly campus shooting in Georgia earlier this month: “I lied.” | 

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“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” Garland wrote in a media release Monday. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”

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The move comes less than a week after the 90,000-member National School Boards Association urged the Biden administration to act swiftly to protect public school leaders who face “an immediate threat” of violence as school board meetings nationwide grow increasingly volatile. The group cited more than 20 instances of threats, harassment and intimidation during board meetings in recent months amid tension over mask mandates and classroom instruction on critical race theory. The school board group referred to the violent threats as “domestic terrorism.”

In , Garland called on the federal agencies to meet with local law enforcement in the next month to create a plan to combat the “disturbing spike.” The Justice Department also announced plans to create a new task force focused on prosecuting people who threaten school leaders. The task force will include the FBI and the Justice Department’s criminal, security and civil rights divisions.

Officials also said they would create training resources that help school boards and administrators understand behaviors that constitute threats, how to report dangerous conduct to police and how to preserve relevant evidence.

Chip Slavin, the school board group’s interim executive director, said in a media release that the Justice Department’s response sent “a strong message to individuals with violent intent who are focused on causing chaos, disrupting our public schools and driving wedges between school boards and the parents, students and communities they serve.”

In one recent incident, police arrested an Illinois man for allegedly hitting a school official as he was being escorted out of a board meeting and, in another, an Ohio school board member received a letter in the mail warning threatening that she would “pay dearly” for requiring students to wear masks on campus. While some speakers have used board meetings to spread conspiracy theories and hate speech, other critics who frequently clash with their school boards to the national association’s assertion that their actions constitute “domestic terrorism.” Among them is activist and former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani, who tweeted that the school board group should apologize to parents.

Conservative lawmakers and activists, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, were quick to accuse officials of trampling on the free speech rights of parents who speak up at school board meetings. On Twitter, the Biden administration of using “federal law enforcement to punish dissent from the ruling class.”

Read the Justice Department memo here: