Kings Local superintendent outlines response, communications after swatting incident

Superintendent James Sears told the Kings Local School District Board of Education during a work session that a false report to a suicide-prevention hotline on the morning of Jan. 31 triggered a large police response and placed Kings High School and the junior high on lockdown.

Sears said the district received a text to the suicide prevention hotline at 10:42 a.m.; the district’s school resource officer at the high school, Officer John Downs, placed the buildings on lockdown at about 10:44 after dispatch notified SROs and multiple law-enforcement agencies. Police were conducting searches inside the buildings by about 10:45, and officers completed a room-by-room search about an hour later; officers cleared the buildings at roughly 11:45 a.m. and the district released students from lockdown at about 11:55 a.m.

The summary outlined why the district is limiting public detail about its internal safety plan: Sears said those safety-plan details “are not necessarily distributed to the public” and that they are “protected by law,” and that the board would not review operational specifics in open session. Sears said the presentation focused on high-level findings and communications lessons rather than on the investigative details that remain with law enforcement and the courts.

Sears credited staff, students and first responders for a rapid, orderly response during heavy hallway traffic: “Within less than 45 seconds in both of our buildings, our hallways were completely clear, and every student was in a lockdown situation,” he said. He said officers who searched the buildings reported seeing or hearing no one, and that the district’s training for lockdowns worked under difficult conditions.

Sears described communications challenges during the event: parents and staff received delayed notifications through the district’s school-messenger system, the first district notice went to families at about 11:11 a.m., and the district later used email to provide translated written updates for families who asked for clarification. He also noted that the district’s website can be switched into a “dark site” mode that provides a single, centralized message for media and families during an active incident.

Sears and several staff members held multiple internal debriefs after the incident, he said, including meetings with first responders, building-level staff debriefs the day of the incident, a central office command-center debrief and district-wide administrator sessions. Sears, district staff members (including Dana Gould and Matt Lucky) and Officer Downs gave a presentation about the event to other districts and law enforcement in Warren County and planned an upcoming presentation for Hamilton County districts.

Sears also described logistics at dismissal and reunification for the junior high: administrators established an on-site pickup system, required ID checks for authorized adults, and had central-office staff assist to ensure students left only with approved adults. He thanked families for patience during traffic and lines and said every student left with an authorized adult.

Board members and staff said they plan to use the incident as an opportunity to refine communications and emergency procedures and to hold community conversations about safety and wellness. Board member (name on file) later summarized the duration of the response: from the hotline call to the all-clear, “73 minutes,” and thanked staff and students for their response.

Sears said an arrest has been made and that the matter is in the hands of law enforcement and the courts; he declined to discuss investigative details in open session.

The district provided multiple immediate takeaways: the speed and coordination of local and neighboring law enforcement; the effectiveness of lockdown training for staff and students even during high-traffic transitions; the need to plan for longer-than-practice lockdown durations; and the importance of rapid, clear, and translated communications for families.

Sears said additional updates and resources will be posted on the district’s website (the district’s dark-site feature will remain active until officials remove it) and that the district will engage parents and community members in planned discussions about safety and wellness.