| By Big Radio News Staff |
Janesville School District and police officials say a social media threat against multiple Rock County Schools is determined to be a hoax.
The district says in a statement on Facebook that social media threats made at schools countywide early Monday appear to have been a “threat wave,” a series of threats that involve multiple schools and multiple school districts.
The district says Janesville police have learned multiple school districts in Rock and Dane counties saw the same or similar threats posted on social media. The district says Janesville police “have determined this not to be a credible threat.”
Janesville Schools says the threats appear to be a continuation of the same school threats officials investigated last week in Minnesota, Ohio and several other states.
Janesville School District and multiple other districts did not immediately return phone calls or emails from Big Radio reporters seeking comment Monday morning.
Milton Schools alerted parents of the threat in an email blast early Monday, saying they’d have extra police patrols of school areas.
It appears to have been the only Rock County school district to issue such an alert Monday morning.
Milton Schools later notified parents in another email that they’d learned someone had posted a screen grab of a threat made last week to Edgerton Elementary School in Mapleton, Minn. That’s a Minneapolis suburb.
The district says the screen grab had a message that included other supposed threats at Milton Schools, and other schools in Rock County — all of which the district says was later determined not credible.
It’s not clear whether the posted screen grab was a deliberate attempt to trick people.
In a third email on Monday afternoon, Milton schools defended its choice to send emails to parents to announce the threat rather using the district’s Facebook page, saying the district sought to avoid “amplifying” a reported threat that had not been substantiated.
The Milton Police Department detailed its own intended response to the threats in an email and in a news release.
Janesville School District explained its initial silence on the threats, saying had the threats actually been deemed “credible,” the district would have notified parents immediately across multiple communication platforms.
The district said in its Facebook post it urges parents to report suspicious messages to the school district and police. It also asks parents to discuss with their children the risks of sharing such social media posts and texts.
