After the Threat: The response and management of the Nov. 30 potential shooting threat by students and administration

Sophomore Sage Scott first heard about a potential shooting threat at the end of fourth hour from one of her classmates.

At first, she brushed it off. 

Maybe it’s made up. 

But then her sixth-hour teacher locked the classroom door.

She couldn’t help but think about the 620 mass shootings that have happened so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. She didn’t want to be part of one herself. 

“I have really bad anxiety,” Scott said. “You see stuff like this on the news all the time. I was really anxious, so I texted my mom. My mom [said], ‘I’m coming to get you right now.’ I think I cried the whole way home.”

Scott is one of at least 700 students who got called out of school on Nov. 30 due to the potential shooting threat, according to attendance clerks Jody Gustafson and D’Ann Woodward. Most of Scott’s sixth hour class was there at the beginning of the class period. When she left 15 minutes later, one-third of the students had left.

“We allowed parents to call their students out if they so choose,” Principal Jason Peres said. “Parents have a right to do that, and we trust them to make the right decision. We communicated to our staff and eventually to our community about what was going on and there was no threat. Even in doing that, some kids just didn’t feel okay being here and we support their decision to do what they think is best.”

Freshman Audrey Squires was also called out. Both Scott and Squires experienced a similar shooting threat at Indian Hills two years ago, and Squires experienced a school shooting four years ago when she was living in Colorado.

“I could’ve sat in my English class and just hoped [that] nothing would happen, but I wasn’t about to sit in class for an hour and a half thinking about this,” Squires said.

Scott wishes that administrators would’ve addressed the threats sooner so that students and parents were less nervous about the situation. 

“I had to text my mom and tell her there’s somebody threatening to shoot up the school,” Scott said. “I do wish they could have just sent an automated text to everybody’s parents and been like, ‘Hey, we don’t know if it’s true or not, but this is just what’s going on.’”

Upon investigation, East administration didn’t find credible evidence of the threat, according to Peres, so crisis protocol was unnecessary and no announcements were made over the intercom.

“It would not be normal for us to come over the PA and announce every investigation that we do,” Peres said. “We do investigations and at times we do investigations involving security threats. We did not meet that threshold with this investigation, so we used other means to communicate to our teachers, staff, students and families.”

Peres assures faculty and students that all safety protocols and procedures remain in place.

“We always run a safe and secure school,” Peres said. “We always have police officers here. We always have locked doors and security protocols and procedures in place to protect kids and staff members. That has never changed, nor will it ever change.”