In just more than a week since a deadly shooting at a Florida high school, nine students across East Tennessee and Southeast Kentucky now face charges for making school threats.
Many schools across the region have investigated a new threat every school day since the February 14 shooting.
Roane County school administrators and law enforcement officials say they are taking the issue very seriously as they are working together with the district attorney's office.
Ninth Judicial District Attorney Russell Johnson oversees four counties, and in the past week he said his office has investigated nine threats, and arrested and charged three juveniles.
"Kids have to understand that there are serious consequences," Johnson said.
Johnson said the charges can be disorderly conduct, harassment and false reporting, which is a felony.
"Different districts are charging it in different ways, different judges are treating it different," Johnson said. "In one county I have a child that has been in custody since Friday and is under a $2 million bond by the juvenile court judge."
Johnson said in some cases, depending on the age of accused, services available and severity of the threat, it can be moved to adult court. He said the majority of juvenile cases are resolved with counseling, services and probation. But there are long-term consequences as well, as going through the juvenile court process can affect one's school record.
"If you're playing sports, athletics of any type, if you're on track for a scholarship, be it academic or athletic, if you're trying to do something going forward with your career," Johnson said.
Roane County Director of Schools Dr. Leah Watkins said administrators are taking every threat very seriously.
"Whether you're making up a threat and you're just sharing it to cause panic in the school system," Watkins said. "Students can actually bully each other this way, they could actually be targeting a student to make it out as if that student were creating a threat, which causes a lot of disruption."
Watkins said students will also be disciplined at school. She said parents need to watch what their child is doing on social media and report threats to the school immediately.
"Parents need passwords, they need to be checking what their kids are posting, what they're sharing and the dialogues that are occurring," Watkins said.