Update: Social Media Posts Lead To Closure Of Two Tuolumne County Schools
Update at 6:35 p.m.: Tuolumne County Sherriff’s officials have released new details regarding the closing of Gold Rush charter’s country school and Curtis Creek Elementary school this morning due to posts on social media. The sheriff’s department reports that investigators have found the source of the threats and also noted that both schools will be open on Wednesday:
Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department:
This morning, several schools were notified about accusations made on social media prompting the school closures.
Law enforcement maintains a collaborative working relationship with our local schools to ensure the safety of students, the decision to close a district school for any reason rests upon the district superintendent. When making the difficult decision to close school, superintendents will likely error on the side of extraordinary precaution in order to ensure the safety of students. Decisions to close school can range between a number of conditions such as fire, flood, earthquake, epidemic, or because of an extraordinary condition such as a threat to the safety of students and/or staff.
The Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office supports the decision that was made as our main priority is public safety.
Our detectives have been working diligently on this and have tracked the information to its original source, and we want to emphasize that zero credible threats of any kind were made.
As we all know, social media is a strong tool to help get information out to the public quickly but it can also perpetuate rumors and panic. We must all be mindful of that as we navigate and comment on social media sites.
We want to thank the community for all of your help and patience during this time.
School will resume tomorrow as normal.
Update at 8:35am: Posts on social media are what led to the closure of two schools in Tuolumne County this morning.
Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. Deborah Moss says, “Basically, we have investigators out at the Curtis Creek School investigating some unsubstantiated social media posts. There is no credible threat to the school or the students at this time. We are very concerned about the community and the schools. We have the best interest at heart for them, so we are diligently working to ensure everyone’s safety. We are investigating, and that is all we can say at this time.”
The situation is also related to the closure of Gold Rush charter’s country school. We’ll pass along more information when it becomes available.
Original story posted at 8am: Sonora, CA — Two schools are closed in Tuolumne County this morning.
Gold Rush charter’s country school and Curtis Creek Elementary school have cancelled classes for the day. We are awaiting additional information as to why. Gold Rush officials indicate it is due to “unforeseen circumstances” and Curtis Creek officials state that more information will be forthcoming.
We also have calls out to the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office to find out if it could be related to any type of investigation.
We’ll pass along more details as they become available.
