Bomb Threats Cost Lost Hours in Education

The National School Safety Center, a nonprofit organization aimed at promoting safe schools, reports that at least 5,000 bomb threats in the six months after the Columbine High slaughter cost schools across the country thousands of lost classroom hours. Some schools reported a 500% increase in the number of bomb threats in their jurisdiction, according to Ronald Stephens, the group's executive director.

California had 548 school bomb threats in the 1998-99 school year, 80 percent of them after the killings, according to Jean Scott, a state Education Department spokeswoman. The previous school year, California had 236 threats, she said.

An Associated Press review of Pennsylvania records shows an even larger increase. Schools in that state reported 309 threats to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency in the month after Columbine, up from 60 between Jan. 1, 1996 and the day before the killings. More recently, PEMA reported 60 bomb threats in Pennsylvania schools between the start of the current school year in September, 1999 and April 26, the latest date for which information is available.

There is no national agency that tracks the total number of bomb threats to the nation's schools. Some states leave the task to individual schools or police departments, which do not always share the information with the state or each other.

The level of violence at schools has escalated, according to Stephens. ``We've transitioned from fistfights to gunfights, and Columbine introduced a new dimension called explosive devices.''

Many educators believe that students who do not know the costs or consequences of making bomb threats Bomb threats are costly both in terms of dollars and hours lost in the classroom. Thirteen of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts during the 1998-99 school year could not provide the 180 days of class required by state law because they lost too many days to bomb threats or other violence. It is more difficult to track the dollars lost, but in addition to the expenses of firefighters and police officers, lost school hours add to salaries and even the cost of lost cafeteria food.