Several Connecticut school districts have an increased police presence on Friday, others have closed schools and Wolcott schools are dismissing early after some posts circulated on social media but said there is no credible threat.
Wolcott public schools will have an early dismissal Friday due “to a high level of rumors and unsubstantiated claims about school violence,” according to a statement from the school.
They said there are no credible threats to the school system, but school officials have been made aware of “a number of rumors and unsubstantiated claims about school violence.”
Wolcott High School will dismiss at 10:45 a.m., Tyrrell Middle School will dismiss at 11:30 a.m. and all elementary schools will dismiss at 12:15 p.m.
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School buses will run on that schedule above.
If younger students are not able to be safely picked up from the bus stop or school, the schools will keep each child safe until a parent or guardian can retrieve the child, school officials said.
Wallingford police said there were several posts on social media Thursday, particularly on TikTok, claiming that there would be school shootings or bomb threats at schools in the United States on Dec. 17. No specific schools or locations were listed and they reinforced that there was no direct threat.
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“Our employees, who are also parents and members of the community, share the worry that families and educators across the country are feeling based on media reports that content rumored to be on TikTok could promote school violence. We continue to aggressively search for any such content on our platform, but we are deeply concerned that the proliferation of local media reports on an alleged trend that has not been found on the platform could end up inspiring real world harm,” TikTok said in a statement to CNBC.
Harwinton decided to close schools on Friday for police to investigate possible threatening information specific to the Region 10 schools.
Norwich schools are closed today.
Hartford school officials said they’ve also been made aware of the nationwide school threats currently being shared on TikTok and there is no credible threat against any Hartford Public Schools.
Naugatuck police said that, due to an uptick in unrelated threats at schools in the region, they will be increasing their presence and patrols at borough schools in the coming days.
They added that there has been no threat against Naugatuck Schools, students, or staff, the public can anticipate a police presence to increase the community’s sense of safety during the coming school days.
She went on to say that there will be zero tolerance of these types of actions and any threat that is made against schools or the school district would be met with serious consequences, up to and including expulsion from school and possible legal action for making threats. Read the full statement here.
Wallingford police said there is no direct threat to Wallingford Schools and they are working with other law enforcement to investigate the issue further and will be continually monitoring the situation.
An increased police presence can be expected Thursday afternoon and Friday at all Wallingford Public Schools, police said.
Waterford police said they are working with school officials to address any concerns in regard to Waterford Schools.
State police said the perceived threats may have originated from a TikTok challenge to skip school on Friday, December 17.
The Connecticut Intelligence Center (CTIC) has not yet identified any specific or credible threat to any schools in Connecticut, according to state police.
TikTok tweeted Thursday that it was working with law enforcement to investigate the warnings of violence.
