— In Arkansas, the Court of Appeals of Arkansas, upheld the delinquency adjudication of a student, who twice spoke the words to school officials, “this school needs to blow up.” The student argued on appeal that the words were not expressions of intent and that the words were “not directed at anyone in particular and that none of the evidence presented suggested that he had a propensity toward violence.” The appellate court applied Arkansas law that prohibits threats “to cause physical injury or property damage to a teacher or other school employee acting in the line of duty.” The court ruled that “the conduct prohibited by the statute is the communication of a threat with the purpose of terrorizing another person.” On this interpretation, the delinquency adjudication was affirmed. “We hold that the record before us contains sufficient evidence to support the circuit court’s finding that a reasonable person would have taken (the student’s) statement as a true threat made with the purpose of terrorizing the school officials. Evidence of (the student’s) angry and combative behavior and the loud volume of his voice indicating an intent to be heard supports (the school official’s) testimony that he took the threat very seriously. Likewise, because (the student) was yelling, being physically and verbally combative, and willing to repeat his comment that the school needed to blow up, (the school resource officer’s) concern was not unreasonable. He specifically stated that he felt the school, students, and staff were threatened and that he believed (the student) “was coming back to do something.”” Minor Child v. State of Arkansas
— In Texas, the legislature is proposing an increase in funding for campus safety. “Both the House and Senate’s proposed budgets for 2026 and 2027 would increase school safety funding by $400 million over the next two years.” Senate Bill 598 is the first step in this direction.
— In Wisconsin, “(t)he Wisconsin Department of Justice Office of School Safety has released the second edition of its Comprehensive School Safety Framework. This framework identifies model school safety practices and is designed for all Wisconsin school leaders to use as a guide and to adapt to fit their needs locally.”
— Nationally, a cybersecurity study publishes that an increasing number of schools surveyed are implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) for students. The Report also discloses that “74% of administrators believe a security incident is likely to impact their school system in the coming year, up from 71% last year. The number of surveyed administrators reporting cyber-attacks has also increased from 31% to 36%. Among school systems reporting incidents, phishing attacks remain the predominant threat – accounting for 87% of incidents, up from 73% last year.”