Members of the Rensselaer City School District Community:
Many of you may have heard about the “swatting” incident that other regional schools experienced. Rensselaer received no such threat, but we did monitor the situation closely throughout the day with the help of our #PartnersInSafety.
Our local Rensselaer Police Department was in constant contact with the district through SRO Roehr. We also were receiving periodic updates from our Questar III safety service. Our safety committee also added this issue to our regularly scheduled meeting today.
We now know that the FBI and New York State Intelligence Center have investigated the situation and deemed it to not be credible. Unfortunately, we can probably expect more “swatting” efforts moving forward. It will be these partnerships that help all school districts, including ours, to take measured responses to keep everyone safe while not creating unnecessary panic. No amount of official communication can spread as quickly as social media rumors. We all appreciate your trust and patience when those rumors and fears can spread so quickly.
It takes an entire community to act together as level headed #PartnersInSafety for us to navigate these new types of challenges successfully. Thank you.