Officials with several area school districts said they are monitoring a nationwide TikTok challenge calling for threats to campus security on Friday.
What originally started as a challenge for students to skip school on Friday has since morphed into encouraging students to jeopardize their schools’ safety.
In an email to parents, officials with Jenks Public Schools reiterated that while they do not have reason to believe there is a credible local threat, the district’s police department is keeping abreast of the situation.
Officials with Owasso, Union and Tulsa also acknowledged that they were aware of the TikTok challenge and asked parents to talk with their students about the ramifications of making threats against classmates and staff, even in jest.
“Please help us to make sure that none of our young Tulsans have to learn the hard way about the results of poor digital citizenship,” a TPS statement reads in part.
People are also reading…
“It is the opposite of humorous to have our campus police come to your home to complete a threat assessment. We assure you that there is absolutely nothing funny about starting the school day in a classroom and ending it in police custody.
“The context or intent of a social media post involving a threat against a school does not matter and anyone — including young people — who make them could face long term suspension, arrest, and criminal charges.”
In an email to parents Thursday night, TPS Deputy Superintendent Paula Shannon wrote that while the district is watching for threats on social media, like their counterparts at Jenks, TPS officials do not believe they have any credible threats against the district’s campuses.
Friday is the last day of fall classes for multiple area school districts, including Tulsa, Union, Broken Arrow, Jenks, Sand Springs, Owasso and Bixby.
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Senior year is challenging enough for students, families and teachers alike without a global pandemic thrown into the mix.
On top of the big signature events like prom and graduation, there are all those little moments that seem mundane at the time that tend to stick with you years later.
The seniors at McLain, Edison and BTW were all too aware that a lot of those moments will look decidedly different for their class, whether they like it or not.
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Muscogee voters approve press protections
Copy doesn’t have to be long to be memorable.
I covered the Muscogee Nation National Council’s vote in 2018 to repeal the tribe’s Independent Press Act. To go from that night to watching the tribe’s electorate codify press protections in their constitution by an almost 3-to-1 margin was simply stunning.
The impact of this vote will be felt for a long time, as it is a lot harder to repeal a constitutional amendment than mere statute.
