Lauren Methena is the mother of four children. Two attend Richmond Public Schools and two are still in preschool.
Her children’s safety has always been a concern, but worries about school violence hit close to home this year when Methena received a message from the interim principal at Dogwood Middle School, where one of her daughters is a student.
The note from Christopher Jacobs, which went out to parents Sept. 12, warned there would be additional security because of a potential threat at their school. Jacobs wrote that “while additional security this AM may feel alarming, it’s so that we can have a safe, focused and learning-filled day.”
The threat was one of nearly a dozen impacting schools across Virginia in the wake of the deadly shooting at Georgia’s Apalachee High School. In response to threats made in the commonwealth, some school administrators increased the police presence on school grounds and in several cases decided to close schools.
“For some reason, this one really got to me more than it normally does,” Methena said about the Georgia school shooting that killed two students, two teachers and injured nine others.
She hadn’t spoken much to her children about that incident until she got the message about a potential threat at her daughter’s school.
“An expletive came to mind,” said Methena, who is the middle school’s PTA president. “Then my thought was, ‘Well, I’m gonna have to talk to my daughter about this now, and at least mention it, so that she’s prepared.’”
It wasn’t the first time she had spoken to her kids about being prepared for violence during their school day.
“I’ll never forget the day [my son] came home from Fox [elementary school],” Methena said, adding that the conversation caught her off guard.
When he was six, Methena's son described a school drill when he and his kindergarten classmates hid in a closet and were told to remain quiet. All of Methena’s children have now gone through similar drills at their schools, practicing how to stay safe in case of a school shooter or other threat.
Methena said while it’s scary to get a message like the one she recently received from Dogwood, she appreciates how school leaders and the district handled the situation.
On Sept. 16, Richmond School Superintendent Jason Kamras sent a message to all RPS parents addressing an “uptick” in violent threats posted on social media.
“I want the RPS community to know that we investigate every single one of these cases and refer the most serious ones to the Richmond Police Department,” Kamras wrote in the email.
Chesterfield County school administrators are also dealing with school threats this September. School officials decided to close Manchester Middle School on Sept. 6 after Chesterfield police notified the school division about an online chat that referenced “someone planning to shoot up” the school.
None of the recent possible threats have been found to be credible. While they haven’t resulted in violence, the fear of violence can still have a lasting impact on some children, resulting in their staying home from school.
The 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of high school students released by the Virginia Department of Health showed a nearly 8% increase over the past decade in the number of students who did not attend school because they felt unsafe. That’s up from 5% of students to 13%. The report also found a decrease in the number of students who said they carried a gun or knife at school since 2015.
Voices for Virginia’s Children CEO Rachael Deane said it’s “unprecedented times” for the mental and emotional well-being of the state’s youth.
She said it’s not only the students’ learning that’s being impacted.
“It’s also disruptive on a more personal level, on a mental health level, for students to be exposed to these threats,” Deane said. “To feel the natural anxiety that comes with that, and for families and parents to be worrying about, ‘How safe are our children?’ when we send them off to school every day.”
Deane said every Virginia school is mandated by state law to have a threat assessment protocol that dictates how it handles these situations. Richmond Public Schools and Chesterfield County Public Schools make their plans available online.
“When there is a threat, it’s a multidisciplinary team bringing together educators and counselors and law enforcement to assess the threat, and there’s a timeline to do that,” Deane said.
She explained that when schools face an urgent threat, divisions are required to implement emergency plans and communications with students’ families.
Deane also expressed concern for the students making these threats, who could face criminal punishment if found guilty.
“When we take a young person and put them into the court system, it can disrupt that young person’s entire life,” she said, adding that it could make it even more difficult for that child to access the support they might need.
Dogwood students are still feeling the impacts of the recent threat.
A message went out to parents last week that the Lady Wolves — the girls basketball team, which has four consecutive undefeated seasons — would limit game attendance to players and coaches because of safety concerns.
They won their most recent game by 28 points.
