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District addresses threats to PBC schools

Posted at 12:39 PM, Feb 03, 2016
and last updated 2016-02-03 13:33:50-05

The Palm Beach County School District is addressing concerns over a spike in bomb threats this school year. The district has responded to 14 incidents or threats since the start of the school year.

Superintendent Robert Avossa says the district does not take these threats lightly. The FBI will be assisting the district with the ongoing threats.

Avossa says these threats are coming into districts in different states and even other countries as far as Australia.

He said they are serious, create panic and impact student achievement

"Once the source of the threat is found, which we're confident it will, we'll push to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law," Dr. Avossa said.

Yesterday at Jupiter High School, parents were visibly angry over conflicting messages about picking students up from school.

Avossa says student safety is their top priority and will use yesterday's incident as a learning experience.

The school district police chief says this is an active investigation. It is unclear if they have any leads at this time.

On a related matter the superintendent said it is not atypical to have a school on lockdown if there is police activity in the area. "On any given day you might have a police officer stop an individual, arrest them, they might run from the police officer and therefore as a precaution we lock schools down."

The superintendent said he would rather lock schools down than take a risk.