Over the last few weeks, schools across the country and in the Tampa Bay Area have been inundated with threats. School officials and law enforcement investigate those threats and take them very seriously, but every time there’s a new alert, it can take a toll on students just trying to learn.
What should have been a typical day turned into something a little too real for students at Newsome High School last week.
On Friday, a threat forced the school into a lockout for several hours.
“There was police flooding the school,” said 10 th grade student Saylor Scott.
“I didn’t really know what was going on, and when we all went in like to the corner and like I knew it was real, I was like really scared,” said 10 th grade student Madalyn Gallagher.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said they didn’t find a weapon or credible threat.
The ripple effect reached parents too.
“It’s just crazy. I can’t even imagine why people would do this, why kids would do this,” said parent Anitha Mathew.