Sunday night, September 8, 2024 a graphic photo began circulating throughout social media which created different plots and speculations of what was going on. Many students started claiming that they were scared to come to school and did not feel safe on school grounds, while others believed this wasn’t a real photograph. This photo was declared to be a false photo from a completely different state, according to a conversation Cy Creek assistant principals had with the FBI.

Cy-Creek APs were notified the night before on the situation and had to find a way to ensure safety for students

¨It was hectic and highly concerning receiving this message. There’s about a thousand things and million things that were going through my mind on what we’re going to do about the school, how we were going to take care of this situation. So everyone would be safe; not a lot of sleep that night,¨ stated Assistant Principals Paul Combs.

This was a situation that had to be taken care of correctly and not made any mistakes to assure the security of both students and staff stepping into the school.

¨We tried to get as much information as we could about the situation to make sure we have the proper information and details to share with our community. Also have all the safety measures to come to school, and let the community know that we are safe from a threat really happening,¨ said Associate principal Frank Fraley.

Certain students at moments like these don’t know how to react, they are unsure if what’s going on is really sure but their immediate thought is something is not right here.

¨Even though we had some thoughts that the threat was not credible, still some people don’t feel safe which is not okay. So that’s when we as an admin team made the decision to search everyone as they came into the school,¨ stated Assistant Principal Jenna Box.

¨We have two walk-through metal detectors, so that means we can have two entrances and close all the other entrances and get all the help we can get. So we close down all the other entrances, get all the help we can get in searching bags and have other staff members watch the other doors,¨ Box also stated.

Similar situations have been occurring in nearby school districts, such as in Waller Isd. They currently have arrested 2 students, one being charged with felony terrorist threats and the other with felony false alarm/false report. While in Houston ISD, 7 students have been arrested and charged with felonies after creating hoax threats and spreading them around. Nearby school districts have started to take serious actions after speculations going around.

The school took all the possible precautions they could to assure the safety of students and make sure that this threat wasn’t something that could jeopardize others as well. Although they did all the measures they could to ensure everyone was safe, a numerous number of students did not come to school that day.

¨My parents were obviously worried, they didn’t want anything happening to me. I’m my dads only daughter and my moms only child, they didn’t want to risk sending me to school if they didn’t know I would make it back,¨ said sophomore Evelyn Ramsy. ¨There’s honestly too much violence at school, there are many times I have not felt safe at school. It’s sad we have to practice to stay hidden, it shouldn’t be normalized, but it sadly is,¨

This is something that students don’t expect to happen at school, students should be allowed to feel like this is a safe environment where they can come and not have to worry about situations that could be life threatening.

¨It makes you super scared, it makes you worried, but it also makes you reevaluate everything. Like ‘are we doing everything that we can do to keep everybody safe?’ I think that we were safer Monday than we’ve ever been because backpacks were searched and we didn’t rush. We took our time, we used metal detectors, and so I felt very secure on that day,¨ stated acting principal Kimberely Sempey.

Although there were a large number that didn’t come to school, there were still some that decided to come to school and proceed with their day.

¨I wasn’t really that worried, I feel like our community at Creek had become extremely desensitized to things of this nature. But I did have a little bit of fear considering the recent shooting that occurred,¨ Sophomore Kaiah Motley said.

The school became aware of this situation after receiving numerous tiplines from parents and students. According to Cy- Fairbanks website they state, ¨Cy-Fair Tipline uses an anonymous reporting system that allows students and parents to communicate school threats to their campus administration through the inter or tipline application.¨

¨Tiplines go directly to the school, but everyone across the district, like the student services and CFPD, all have access to every tip line in the district. But we see it in real time, when you submit a tip we get it right away the school gets notified and takes action to the situation and make sure we have everything in place,¨ stated Fraley.

If students or parents ever feel the need to speak about their safety or their children’s, the CFISD tipline is an effective way to communicate with the school after seeing recent events occurring within the school district.