Feds Offer K-12 School Guidance to Address ‘Scourge of Anonymous Threats’

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released the Anonymized Threat Response Guidance: A Toolkit for K-12 Schools, a new resource to help K-12 schools and their law enforcement and community partners create tailored approaches to addressing anonymous threats of violence, including those received on social media.

The toolkit outlines steps school leaders can take to assess and respond to anonymous threats, better prepare for and prevent future threats, and work in coordination with law enforcement and other local partners when these threats arise. It is co-sealed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which provided expert feedback on the toolkit’s key principles and strategies.

Social-media-based and other types of anonymous threats of violence against K-12 institutions are common. These threats can erode trust that schools are safe places, contribute to losses in learning and instruction time, overwhelm school and law enforcement resources, and have lasting psychological impacts on school communities.

“K-12 schools across the country are experiencing a scourge of anonymous threats of violence. School leaders need scalable solutions to navigate these ever-evolving and burdensome threats,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly.

“Families, students, and educators should not have to question whether they’re safe when they walk into a classroom,” added FBI Office of Partner Engagement Assistant Director Robert Contee. “In the face of these ongoing school threats, the strategies the FBI and our partners at CISA put together will hopefully prepare our educators and administrators to maneuver through difficult challenges. The more parents, teachers, and administrators know, the more likely we are to keep our kids safe.”

Key Strategies

The toolkit emphasizes six key strategies for schools to consider when addressing anonymous threats:

1. Build awareness about reporting to detect threats early and deter future threats.
2. Develop a partnership structure that will help address threats. This includes school administrators, law enforcement personnel, and mental health professionals.
3. Engage law enforcement to manage threat situations and decide when to scale response actions up or down.
4. Balance initial response steps to ensure the campus is safe. Most critically, treat each threat as credible, and from there, work with necessary partners to determine how to approach an immediate response.
5. When appropriate, tap into multidisciplinary threat assessment teams to support interventions and expedite response if the subject who made the threat becomes known.
6. Take steps throughout the school year to prepare for threats. Establish a response protocol and practice other types of emergency management activities, such as training exercises for staff.

This release also includes a supplemental reference guide that provides streamlined information for K-12 stakeholders to understand and utilize some of the best practices from the full toolkit. To access the resources, click here. 

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