Several Utah schools and school districts on Friday were once again victims of a rash of hoax threats.

According to a press release from the Utah Department of Public Safety, the agency was aware of several schools throughout the state receiving emailed bomb threats.

“As of our latest assessment, all received threats have been determined to be hoaxes,” the release said. “DPS is actively collaborating with local law enforcement agencies to conduct comprehensive investigations into these incidents. Our top priority is ensuring the safety and security of our educational institutions and the communities they serve. The safety of our students and school staff is of utmost importance.”

The Standard-Examiner attempted to reach out to DPS about how many schools were impacted but received no response by press time.

In March, schools across the state, including Ogden High School, received calls falsely reporting active shooting situations.

Among those districts where schools received threats Friday was the Weber School District, which sent out a press release early Friday morning.

“Yesterday, we received information from our law enforcement partners that a bomb threat hoax was circulating in schools throughout Idaho and Wyoming,” the release said. “This morning, the same hoax started hitting schools throughout Utah. In fact, we’ve already received the hoax here at some of our schools.

“In working with law enforcement, we are certain this is a hoax meant to try and disrupt the school system. We are working closely with law enforcement but we are confident there is no danger to our schools. You may see some additional officers at schools around the county this morning, but we are trying to limit the disruption this hoax could cause. We appreciate your understanding in this matter.”

Lane Findlay, Weber School District spokesperson, told the Standard-Examiner on Friday that he was warned Thursday about what was going on in other states and opted to prepare the district for the potential of similar threats being issued in Utah.

“I’m in a public relations email group, and somebody had shared, ‘Hey, heads up, it sounds like there’s some kind of threat hoax that’s circulating up in Wyoming and Idaho,'” he said. “That was (Thursday), so in preparation that it might make its way here, I actually sent some information out to our principals giving them a heads up.”

He was unsure of exactly how many threatening emails were received in the district Friday.

Ogden School District spokesperson Jer Bates told the Standard-Examiner that, at one point Friday, he was preparing to inform parents and staff that district schools hadn’t been among those targeted by the hoax threats — just as a hoax threat was sent to the district.

“I was literally in the middle of typing out a message to our employees and parents saying, ‘Hey, we’re aware of this, we know it’s going around, we haven’t received any,'” he said. “I was almost ready to hit send on that, and then we got one. It was sent to a really, really obscure HR department email address, ended up in somebody’s spam folder and they happened to catch it.”

He said that the message was in line with what other districts had been seeing throughout the morning.

“We immediately checked with OPD to consider for credibility and determined it was not credible at all,” he said. “I had to change my message from saying, ‘We have not received any,’ to saying, ‘We did get one, but no credible threat and all of our students are safe,’ and we continued with the rest of our educational day with basically no disruption.”

Bates said the district did not call out for extra police presence in Ogden schools given the nature of the emails.

“Had this been a more isolated incident, that certainly would’ve been warranted,” he said. “This was actually previously known to law enforcement in the state prior to today that this had been circulating in neighboring states. It was almost like we were waiting for it to arrive here. … We would’ve been concerned about causing more harm through traumatizing people by having a lot of police show up when there was no credible threat.”

He said that staff were instructed to keep an eye out for students who may be in distress over the situation.

“Moreso kids that might hear about it and feel traumatized or upset about the concept of there being a danger at their school,” he said.

While no more information was released about the potential origins of Friday’s hoax emails, Bates said it’s imperative that students remember that submitting hoax threats is dangerous.

“This is a felony offense, and we need people to understand the serious gravity and the serious consequences associated with sending these types of messages,” he said.

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