School officials in Macon are urging community-wide efforts to maintain school safety in the wake of a wave of internet threats across Georgia following a school shooting in Barrow County which killed four people and injured numerous others.
The Bibb County School District is investigating online rumors that circulated over the weekend, targeting specifically Northeast High School and Appling Middle School, officials said on Monday. They’re not the only school district who has dealt with threats in the week since the Apalachee High School shooting.
According to social media posts, Bibb County students mentioned bringing weapons on campus in order to protect themselves against the rumored threat.
BCSD Superintendent Dan Sims asked parents on Sunday to monitor their children’s social media pages and clear their homes of any accessible weapons.
“If you don’t mind … check inside your house … and make sure that there is nothing in that house that can be brought to school that will take away from the safety of our schools and that will take away the work that we’re trying to do,” Sims said during a five-minute Facebook livestream. “This has to become a team effort.”
Sims also encouraged Bibb County students to enforce school safety by reporting anything they see, hear or read that’s alarming.
“I need my students to help us make safety deposits. When it comes to safety, safety is not just my responsibility. It is not just our responsibility as the adults,” he said. “It is actually everybody’s responsibility. Everybody who has a set of eyes, a mind (and) a mouth is playing a part in promoting the safety inside our buildings, around our buildings, and in our community.”
All social media posts that had surfaced were rumors, and no posts identified a specific threat, BCSD spokesperson Stephanie Hartley said in a Remind message to parents.
But BCSD campus police were providing extra support to the Northeast High School campus and all Eastside schools Monday, Hartley said.
“Bibb County School District is aware of social media postings cautioning a possible threat to Bibb Schools today. These posts were immediately flagged and reported to Meta and to emergency authorities, including BCSD Campus Police. Meta removed the original post. We will continue to investigate and follow all security protocols,” the district said.
Some of the protocol include safety alert systems that teachers wear inside the classroom and new metal detection systems used at all schools for anyone entering the buildings, Hartley added.
Sims commented on Facebook that he would go live again Monday to announce updates and safety plans to comfort parents as they send their children off to school this week.
“I just need to give you first assurance that everything that we do as a school district is designed to keep us as safe as humanly possible. Our campus police department (and) our chief of police do incredible work,” he said during the livestream.
Sims sent his condolences to the mourning families of the Apalachee High School shooting and the fatal incident that occurred two days later at a high school in Baltimore.
“It’s been a difficult week. Anybody in public education will tell you it’s difficult when anything horrific (or) terrible happens to anyone, especially in our schools,” he said before addressing local safety concerns.
The district asks anyone with any information about a possible threat to call Campus Police at 478-779-2040 or report it through the Safe4Bibb safety app.
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