Kunsmiller Creative Arts Elementary

Mr. Peter Castillo - Social Media Threat

10/28/22, 3:22 PM

Dear KCAA Families,

Yesterday at Kunsmiller there was a social media threat. DPS Safety and DPD responded promptly and the school was in a secured perimeter yesterday. Based on the involvement of the FBI, the threat was viewed as not credible but remains under investigation. We believe that students and staff are safe to be in school and will keep you updated as we get additional information and communication from our partners at the FBI. We have increased our presence and encourage you to stay vigilant and report anything suspicious to the main office immediately. To recap:

  • On Thursday, some high school students reported receiving social media messages that indicated that the sender was going to shoot them. Several students shared those messages with school leadership.

  • School leadership immediately contacted Denver police and DPS Department of Safety who placed the school into a secure perimeter. This means that school continues inside the building, but everyone must stay inside.

  • Officers arrived at the school and began investigating the social media posts.

  • The messages continued, so we, in coordination with the Department of Safety, decided to place the school into a “Hold.” This means that everyone must stay in their classrooms. In this situation, lights stay on and students do not need to hide as they do during a Lockdown.

  • We are having a normal school day today. Members of the Department of Safety are in the building as a precaution.

  • The Haunted Hallways events have been postponed to a later date.

As Safety and DPD looked into the threats, they quickly determined that there was - and is - no imminent danger to the students and staff. But, we made the decision to hold the students in their classrooms to help with the process that we needed to follow for student checkout. Today, both departments are continuing to investigate this situation. 

We acknowledge that the student checkout process was slow and we appreciate your patience. Unlike our process on a normal day, a school administrator walked to each classroom to escort the student to the door to connect with their family member. Again, this was done to ensure their safety.

We also acknowledge that communication could have been better during the early moments of our response. Please know that we were working diligently to ensure that our students and staff were safe and did not communicate until later in the morning. We will work with the DPS communications team on a plan to communicate sooner.

We will continue to support DPS Safety and the Denver Police Department with their investigation. Due to student privacy, we are not able to share any information about possible student involvement or any possible disciplinary action.

Finally, our fully-staffed mental health team is available for staff and students as needed. Please feel free to contact me if you have additional questions.

Sincerely,  

Peter Castillo, Executive Principal

Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy