How Should Schools Respond to Student Threats?

When a student makes a verbal or written threat against a classmate or school employee, administrators must make several determinations: How serious is the threat? Does the student pose an ongoing safety concern? Should the student be suspended or expelled? What interventions might prevent further incidents?

The question of disciplinary consequences recently prompted a discussion among members of the National Council of School Safety Directors (NCSSD), after one school safety professional asked whether districts have established suspension periods for students who make verbal or written threats.

Members shared how their districts approach these decisions, emphasizing individualized threat assessments, the distinction between threat assessment and discipline, and the potential consequences of removing students from school.

Why Student Threats Require Individualized Responses

Dewey Cornell, Virgil S. Ward Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Virginia and a nationally recognized researcher in school behavioral threat assessment, cautioned against treating all threats as equally serious.

"Just making a threat can mean different things and have differing impacts on others," Cornell wrote in the NCSSD discussion. "Some threats are trivial and others quite distressing, and a few signal a genuine intent that requires protective action."

Rather than applying automatic disciplinary consequences, Cornell emphasized that the response should reflect the findings of a threat assessment.

"A threat of any kind should be carefully assessed and the response should match the assessment and not follow an automatic rule or formula," he said.

Other school safety leaders echoed that perspective. Solveig Jurmu, director of safety and security for North Shore School District 112 in Illinois, said her district does not use predetermined disciplinary formulas for student threats.

"Threats should be taken in context," Jurmu wrote. "A five-year-old saying they want to harm someone may mean something very different than a high schooler saying they want to harm someone."

She emphasized conducting a behavioral threat assessment before determining disciplinary consequences. In some cases, the response may involve reflection activities intended to help students recognize and change their behavior.

Threat Assessment and Discipline Serve Different Purposes

One NCSSD member from Virginia described a two-part approach that separates the assessment of a threat from the determination of disciplinary consequences.

First, a multidisciplinary team consisting of an administrator, social worker, and school resource officer evaluates the reported threat and assigns a level of concern, ranging from no or low threat to imminent threat.

The district then follows its student behavior and administrative response guidelines to evaluate the harm caused and determine appropriate disciplinary consequences and interventions.

"This process allows for us to better analyze the uniqueness of every threat," the member explained.

As school safety practitioners have emphasized in previous School Security Leadership coverage, BTAM is intended to identify and manage safety concerns rather than function as a disciplinary process.

In an earlier School Security Leadership article about threat assessment interviews, BTAM practitioner Chad Chaney emphasized that conversations with students can reveal previously unknown conflicts, stressors, or misunderstandings that influence an assessment.

When Is Suspension Appropriate?

Although suspension or removal from school may be warranted in some situations, Cornell cautioned against relying on exclusionary discipline as an automatic response to threats.

"There is voluminous research that suspensions and expulsions neither improve student behavior nor serve as a deterrent that improves the behavior of other students," he wrote.

Cornell pointed to his 2020 research review, which summarized research showing that school threat assessment teams had resolved thousands of student threats without serious acts of violence while allowing most students to return to school. Controlled studies also found that schools using threat assessment could reduce suspensions.

Cornell also referenced a 2011 statewide Texas study examining exclusionary discipline and student outcomes more broadly. The study followed nearly 1 million students and found that schools serving similar student populations had substantially different suspension and expulsion rates.

Researchers also found that students suspended or expelled for discretionary violations were nearly three times as likely to have contact with the juvenile justice system the following year, even after accounting for student and school characteristics.

Another NCSSD member, who works in a therapeutic school setting, emphasized that maintaining connections to school is an important consideration when determining how to respond. The member noted that a short suspension may sometimes be appropriate when a serious threat requires further investigation and immediate safety concerns must be addressed. However, longer-term decisions should also consider whether the student can remain connected to supportive adults and educational services.

"All humans strive for connection and belonging and when those ties are severed, it only serves to push students up the pathway to violence," the member wrote.

In some circumstances, an alternative educational environment may be appropriate, the member added, but decisions should consider opportunities for continued connection and support.

State Laws Can Influence Disciplinary Decisions

Although school safety practitioners emphasize individualized responses, districts must also comply with applicable state laws and disciplinary requirements.

Several states enacted legislation in 2026 addressing school threats, violence, and related consequences. In Alabama, a new law generally requires students charged with certain school threat offenses to be removed from regular classrooms while their cases are pending. South Carolina enacted legislation allowing school boards to expel students for up to one academic year for certain credible threats involving weapons, subject to specified conditions.

Tennessee also increased criminal penalties for knowingly making threats of mass violence against schools and other designated locations.

While some laws directly affect school disciplinary decisions, others establish criminal consequences separate from school discipline. School leaders must consider applicable disability protections, individualized education programs, behavioral support plans, and due process requirements when determining appropriate responses.

Addressing the Behavior Beyond the Immediate Threat

Determining whether a student should be suspended is only one part of responding to a threat. A behavioral threat assessment may identify underlying conflicts, unmet support needs, or other circumstances that require attention even when a student is not considered likely to carry out a threat.

Depending on the findings, interventions may include counseling, conflict resolution, behavioral supports, increased supervision, safety planning, family engagement, or other measures intended to reduce future risk.

"Students who make threats need a variety of different consequences, both to correct the misbehavior and address any underlying problem or conflict," Cornell wrote.

Ultimately, the question is not simply how many days a student should be suspended for making a threat, but what response will best address the behavior, protect the school community, and reduce the likelihood of future harm.