Uvalde CISD trustees discuss swatting, social‑media threats and plans for after‑action review

Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District trustees spent substantial time Wednesday addressing recent swatting hoaxes and troubling social‑media accounts that have “retraumatized” the community and prompted coordinated responses with law enforcement.

The discussion included public comments urging clearer and faster messaging to parents during incidents, requests for an after‑action briefing for trustees and for board access to memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with law enforcement agencies.

The superintendent, Superintendent Colas, told trustees the district is treating the hoaxes as criminal acts and is working “with local, state and federal law enforcement officials to investigate these cases and protect our students and our staff on our campuses.” Colas said investigators “do have persons of interest that they are currently investigating.”

A number of speakers during the public forum gave first‑hand accounts of how the hoax calls and social posts affected them. Anson Bills, a parent and resident, criticized parents who rushed onto a campus during the Dalton hoax and said gates should be locked to help contain incidents. Berlinda Areolas, who said the hoaxes trigger post‑traumatic stress, asked for clearer messages such as a timeline and more precise wording (for example, “possible threat on the third floor”) so parents can judge how to respond. EmilIa Amy Franco described fear and trauma that followed the alerts and urged more counseling outreach.

Trustee Jesse Riso asked for an overview of the timeline of law‑enforcement responses and whether the district could provide a summary of after‑action findings. Colas and other administrators said two after‑action reviews were already completed — one by law enforcement after an earlier high school incident and a second that included campus responders the following morning — and that lessons from those reviews were applied before the subsequent Dalton incident. Colas said similar after‑action reviews are done after drills as well. She told trustees she would present a summary of action items in a closed‑session briefing to keep security details confidential: “We can certainly do that. I would ask for closed session. We generally do that with our safety and security committee, but I’m happy to have it on the next agenda for closed session.”

Trustees also asked for copies or summaries of any MOUs or memoranda of agreement with city and county law enforcement; Colas confirmed the district has MOUs with both the city and county and said she would provide them to trustees.

The discussion noted tensions around parental behavior during incidents. Some speakers said parents who rushed onto campuses hampered first responders and complicated response efforts; others urged better communications so parents would not immediately converge on schools. Multiple speakers asked for increased counseling and outreach to students and families.

The superintendent also announced the district is coordinating with outside partners and offered that UT‑area and state partners have been assisting with the investigations and community supports. Colas asked the board to allow the safety matters to be discussed in closed session for confidentiality and to prevent informing potential wrongdoers about system weaknesses.

Ending: Trustees did not take a formal vote on policy changes at the meeting; they approved an item on the agenda to present after‑action findings in closed session at a future meeting and asked administration to provide MOUs and a security‑committee briefing to the board.