Superintendent Qualman provides update on school social media threat

Eagle County School District Superintendent Phil Qualman, just before 11 a.m. on Monday, issued the following update on a social media threat to Battle Mountain High School and other school around the state that resulted in many students staying home from school:

Dear Students, Families, and Staff of Eagle County School District,

As you are likely aware, last night an alarming social media post circulated that threatened a few of our schools, as well as schools in other districts and states. Eagle County School District relies on our sheriff’s office to investigate these situations and then inform us of the best course of action. Local law enforcement found no credibility to the social media post, and the decision was made to carry on with our school day as normal. Numerous schools across Colorado were included in the social media post, and we’ve heard from our counterparts at other involved schools that they and their local law enforcement agencies have also found this information not to be credible. These schools have also remained open today, with some of them not sharing out any information to keep fear from spreading in their communities.

Please know that your child’s safety is always our top priority. In an effort to provide support and normalcy for our students, we made the decision to continue with classes and extracurriculars today with an increased police presence out of an abundance of caution. Certain schools may be forced to cancel various activities due to lack of attendance at school today. Each school will handle these decisions on a case-by-case basis. Please understand that any cancellations are not out of fear for students’ safety, but due only to attendance.

Since hiring our new Director of Safety and Security, we’ve taken numerous steps to make our campuses more safe. We’ve shared many of those details with you directly in our newsletters and with the community at large through the Vail Daily. When an incident like last night occurs, we act quickly and work with the sheriff’s department to determine whether they believe the threat is valid. Last night’s post has seemingly popped up across the country in various states and numerous school districts, which indicates it is not a credible threat.  

Last night’s post is not our first experience with what we believe to be a case of “swatting.” Swatting is an illegal prank that occurs when someone calls in a fake report to emergency services, accusing another person of a serious crime. Usually, the accusation is so severe that it warrants an immediate response from law enforcement. 

We understand there are questions about how a threat is determined to be valid, however this is under the purview of local law enforcement. As a school district, we are only able to share information about the investigation that local law enforcement has publicly shared. We chose to send a message late last night to provide an initial statement to inform families we were aware of the situation and local law enforcement was involved. The system we use to send emergency messages pushes our thousands of messages to all parents and staff members in batches, which means it can take several minutes for all recipients to receive the message. There is also a difference in the speed between a text message and email being received by users, and we appreciate your understanding of the limitations of technology.

We respect any parent’s decision to keep their child(ren) home today out of concern. We encourage you to reach out to your child’s school directly to ensure their absence is excused.

We will continue to monitor the situation with the support of local law enforcement and provide any further updates should new information become available.

Phil Qualman
Superintendent