Pa. Education Secretary: Governor Forms Task Force To Address School Threats
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Pennsylvania's Secretary of Education was in town Thursday night.
Secretary Pedro Rivera spoke to an audience at Point Park University about leadership, as part of an ongoing program sponsored by the university.
KDKA asked Rivera about the sustained level of threats that local school districts are dealing with.
Rivera told KDKA the governor's newly-formed task force is gathering information from districts across the Commonwealth.
"We have to provide support for students within those schools to meet their social, emotional needs, to work on mental health services, to connect them to caring adults. But we also have to think of how we respond to incidents... should they occur in our schools," he said.
Amy Wadas' Report:
In the latest incident, a social media post put educators in the Shaler Area School District and law enforcement on alert. Administrators notified parents, but did not cancel classes.
The FBI characterizes the troubling pattern as a sustained level of threats.
Behind the scenes, they have highly-specialized federal computer analysts and evidence response teams.
"But, we also help with the investigation because we do sometimes have a federal nexus, especially if the threat if posted on Facebook or other social media platforms, or if it's made by telephone. So, obviously, this gives us a federal nexus as well to prosecute these cases," said FBI Assistant Special Agent In Charge Chad Yarbrough.
All agree that parent-child communication is so vital, telling students what to look out for, and explaining the ramifications, or consequences, that making threats can have.
