It was the sort of notification or call that every parent and many student fears as an unfortunate downside to living in America; a threat on our schools. With enough legitimate acts of violence happening in American schools, every threat must be taken seriously, as was a recent one at Chaparral High School.
Thankfully this particular threat of terror was deemed to not be a credible threat and students were soon released early to go home. But it also follows a spate of different threats around the Valley in the recent past. Is this a case of recency bias, where a cluster of near-term events warp our view of the bigger picture and make a particular set of occurrences seem more frequent than they truly are?
The data on actual school shootings in the United States is alarming to say the least. According to the FBI, between 2020 and 2024, the number of active shooter incidents in K-12 schools averaged 244 incidents annually. In the 50 years before that, the average was 31 incidents per year. That represents a stunning 687%, with more than enough data in the years previous at least to make it statistically significant of a comparison point.
Perhaps the most notable point was when this jump in school shootings began (or at the very least, the beginning of that five-year time period): 2020. The pandemic. Schools were closed and impressionable youths went further down digital rabbit holes that would feed every impulse they might have had, some of them dark and negative. People on each side of the political and ideological spectrum will certainly try to use this data to reinforce their points, but both the magnitude of change and the timing of it are stark and telling.
So is it just a matter of time before an actual incident happens? If one were to extrapolate those numbers and cross-reference them against the population of the area, it’s far from unreasonable to believe that it is only a matter of time, if not in Scottsdale than in the rest of the Valley. And while we are not in the business of alarmism, it’s difficult not to take pause and be somewhat concerned.
But even if you are concerned…is there anything you can do? Because fear without preparation or a plan is simply useless fear.
False alarm as it was, this incident should serve as a reminder to bring up the possibility to your kids, not for the sake of useless fear but for preparation. They should understand the possibility and know what they should do if a real situation arises. While having the possibility in the back of their mind certainly isn’t positive for learning, until shown otherwise this possibility is our new reality.
For more resources on preparedness for a situation like this, please head to the FBI’s website for more information.