How Are You Dealing with the Recent School Threats?

I was in NYC on 9/11 and was evacuated from my building. Also evacuated a few days later when some jerk called in a threat to the city. I refuse to live in fear. More often than not, these types of call in things are hoaxes or incredibly short-sighted "kids" thinking they're going to get the day off.

Our child's school takes precautions, but considering that just regular life things like driving are significantly more likely to be dangerous, I choose to not let fear generated by highly publicized tragedies screw up my life.

My kids go to school in one of the many bordering districts to LAUSD, and I work in another district one more town over. We were all in session. We had a lot of extra "presence" though in mine, a few law enforcement and all admin out just to reassure everyone that we would be vigilant.

Honestly, since Newtown, not a day goes by that i don't think about a shooting at school (mine or my kids). Sad, sad state of things in the US right now in that regard. So I wasn't really extra scared. I am much more scared of something happening with ZERO warning, and we can't control that.

I also fully support the superintendant's decision in LAUSD to shut down. Aside from many of my LAUSD friends getting a "snow day" (who doesn't long for that in California!?!?) it just made us feel safer in a way.

I know it's hard not to be afraid, but in the 50s kids were taught to crawl under desks to prepare for a nuclear attack by the Soviets, in the 60s there were bomb threats everywhere, and so on. Usually it was someone pissed off at a teacher or trying to get out of an exam. Now they are mimicking terror threats and sent by email vs. pay phones, but it's no different. So I would send my child unless it was a specific threat against a specific school.

Threats are nothing new.
I can remember being in 1st grade and standing outside in the snow for 3 hours due to a bomb threat (this was in the 70's) - eventually they had us walk across the field to the high school so we could warm up in the auditorium.
I don't like being hyper aware of this sort of thing.
Worrying doesn't do anything but waste your energy.
If something's going to happen - it's going to happen whether you worry or not.
At times like this, I turn off the radio, don't watch live tv, and stay off web news sites.
And I can only wish that a Calamity Jane at work would shut up about her facebook news feed.

We had threats here about 3 weeks ago. I teach high school and the threats were specifically directed at our school, not district-wide. The decision was made to keep the school opened, but if parents chose to call and take kids home the absence would be excused. It was a creepy day. The threat was very specific and was to occur at noon. Over half of the students were out that day, and I didn't blame the parents for wanting to be sure their kids were safe. The police ended up charging two students with "terroristic threats of violence." Their lives have now changed forever.