SCHOOL THREATS

Tracing a threat used to be easier for school districts: administrators and police would link the ominous phone call to a pay phone outside the building and find a naive student eager to get out of class for the day.

But now, as it happened Monday to Pittsburgh Public Schools, a threat made from a Florida resident in a chat room of an online video game can put schools 1,200 miles away on modified lockdown.

Social media and the evolving digital landscape has complicated the effort to keep students safe, broadening the ways in which threats of violence can be made and forcing school officials to be vigilant in monitoring a complex platform.

Though administrators have to take each threat seriously, school safety experts and officials say there are ways to determine whether or not to cancel classes or institute a lockdown.

The number of total threats toward Allegheny County schools has stayed consistent over the past few years;