School bomb threats cause anxiety and disrupt learning within the school community, especially since they are reoccurring more often.

Harris County Department of Education’s Center for Safe and Secure Schools (CSSS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are hosting a free series of trainings with a 2019 Safety Series: An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure.  The workshops dealing with the awareness, prevention and planning for potential campus threats are presented by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Explosives Specialist Bill Shockley.

Immediately following Columbine, schools across the nation experienced spikes in bomb threats and related incidents.

“As schools continue to build upon safety strategies, the threat of bombs must factor into that education,” said Ecomet Burley, director of the Center for Safe and Secure Schools. “These trainings are critical for district and campus personnel.”

A 2015 national study of more than 800 violent school bomb threat and shooting threats took research to a higher level by collecting original data and dissecting critical trends and patterns. It was revealed that more than 70 percent of the threats involved shooting and/or bomb threats. Thirty percent of these schools were evacuated, and 10 percent closed, oftentimes unnecessarily doing so, revealing a need for school threat assessment training.

These introductory courses provide an understanding of how to identify and respond to an improvised explosive device threat and protective measures to mitigate an IED threat. Various IED devices are examined and discussed.

The first training, Bombing Prevention Awareness, is scheduled for Thursday, March 28, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 6005 Westview, Houston, TX 77055. Register for the workshop: https://bit.ly/2NQdDAt .

The second training, Protective Measures Course, will be held April 11 at 6005 Westview, Houston, TX 77055. Register for the workshop: https://bit.ly/2SS9XPE  .

Two other advance workshop trainings will be held later in the year: Threat Management Planning and IED Search Procedures Course are planned on June 25 and July 23 respectively.   For more information contact school safety and security specialist Janice Owolabi at jowolabi@hcde-texas.org.