Eagle County School District superintendent stands by decision to keep schools open despite social media threats
In an interview with the Vail Daily, Phil Qualman reflects on week of threats, says schools are heading back to normal
Zoe Goldstein/Vail Daily
Following a week of threats to public schools in Eagle County and an arrest made in Eagle, things are getting back to normal in the classroom while the investigation continues.
Reflecting on the last week of unknowns and anxiety, Eagle County School District Superintendent Phil Qualman said he stands by the decision to keep schools open throughout the tumult.
“For the most part, we believe that our actions were appropriate. Every crisis situation is a learning opportunity, and we’ll review with our team in an after-action review,” Qualman said Monday.
Threats that surfaced on Sunday, Sept. 8, and Tuesday, Sept. 10, were cleared by law enforcement as hoaxes. A threat on Monday, Sept. 9, which included lists of students’ and staff members’ names that may have been potential targets, is still under investigation by the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office and federal partners.
On Friday, Sept. 13, Eagle police arrested a juvenile in connection with the threats, but further details have not yet been released.
Support Local Journalism
“We’re aware of the arrest from Friday, and it is our understanding that law enforcement continues to investigate the lists that contain the student names,” Qualman said. “We’re encouraged that law enforcement was able to identify the suspect.”
Qualman agreed to speak with the Vail Daily on Monday after a week of packaged statements from the district.
“You hope that your accumulation of experience has, throughout your lifetime, prepared you for the circumstances,” Qualman said.
Qualman himself, along with other members of the administration, joined students and staff in schools last week.
“I was in schools because I believed them to be safe and will continue to do that. I do that every day and will continue to do that in times of threat and not in times of threat, so it didn’t change my routine,” he said. “I was happy with our administration’s presence, with our teachers and staff members being present, and proud of our staff members for modeling fortitude and composure.”
Choosing to keep schools open
More than 50 students and families attended Wednesday night’s school board meeting to speak out about how they felt the district was handling the threats, from lack of communication to lack of safety measures.
Qualman said there was also plenty of feedback from students and parents who didn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting.
“We got plenty of feedback from people who are grateful for how we handled it, so I think we have a variety of opinions,” Qualman said.
Many of the students and families that spoke at the meeting shared that they felt afraid to attend school, or to send their children to school, and paralyzed by the district’s decision to hold school in-person despite the threats.
Students’ attendance was lower than usual across the district last week, and particularly low at the schools where students were targeted on the threat list, including Eagle Valley High School. Attendance was at its lowest on Monday, Sept. 9, and Friday, the day of the initial threat and the day students on the lists were said to be targeted.
“We respect their decision to keep their kids home if they’re fearful, but we also provide options for folks who have a lower tolerance for risk or fear through online school programming,” Qualman said. “We expanded our online programming post-COVID, when most districts had shut that down, so we want to provide lots of options for families to find the right fit, and if going to school is scary, we can accommodate their education needs through World Academy.”
Families can switch, even several weeks into the school year, from in-person to online learning if they wish. However, Qualman said, not many families chose to fully switch their students to online learning last week.
“There were hardly any,” he said.
On Tuesday, Sept. 10, Eagle Valley High School Principal Tom LaFramboise sent out a survey to families asking if they were interested in an online learning option on Friday.
“That was a school that had the majority of kids on a threat list for Friday the 13th,” Qualman said. “So they were just trying to figure out for themselves what kind of programming option made the most sense based on people’s attendance plan. But it was for a one-day situation only, at one school.”
“My understanding is that the majority preferred to be virtual that day, so they made that option available,” he said.
Staff members were expected to be in-person at all schools across the district throughout the week. “Most of the feedback that I’ve received from staff members was, ‘thank you for keeping a cool head,'” Qualman said.
District communication changes, cell phone policy remains the same
The district launched a new form of communication following Wednesday’s school board meeting, opting to post all updates, except those that are urgent or require a response from families, on its website.
“I think it has worked well,” Qualman said. “We followed it all weekend, so continued to provide some updates on our website, we didn’t push out any information because there was nothing urgent or actionable.”
The district’s new cell phone policy also came under scrutiny during the school board meeting. Elementary and middle schoolers are required to turn their phones off for the duration of the school day, while high schoolers must turn their phones off during class, according to the policy.
“We’re not considering making any changes to the policy,” Qualman said.
“We’ve had a few inquiries of people saying they would prefer the kids have cell phones in case of crisis, and we just remind them that in high schools, the kids are allowed to have their phones on them, so they can have them in their bag, but they have to be off during class, so in the event of a crisis, they would have access to their phone,” Qualman said. “We also have phones in every classroom, so kids can make calls if they need to.”
District reiterates safety improvements
The district has made “significant” improvements to school safety over the past six months, Qualman said.
“The after-action review that we’ll conduct on Tuesday with our principals is an important step for us every time there’s a major incident,” Qualman said. During the review, school and district leaders will gather to evaluate the district’s response to the threats, and identify areas for improvement.
“I understand that there’s a desire to see more armed security in our schools, which I would have liked to have seen, but the fact that we weren’t able to pass the mill levy override in 2023 鈥� we specifically asked for that funding to increase school safety and security and it didn’t pass,” Qualman said. “We were grateful that the bond passed, which has allowed us to make all these infrastructure changes, but more School Resource Officers requires ongoing revenue, that is an operational expense, is what mill levy overrides are intended for, so we’ll ask again in the future, and hopefully the community would support it at that time.”
Tad Degen, the district’s new director of safety and security, has been a “key addition,” said Matt Miano, the district’s chief communications officer. “Having him on board has helped us through this process. He’s obviously got a great relationship with law enforcement, and I think that definitely helped us through quite a bit of this process last week, and it will continue to be the case.”
This week, despite the ongoing investigation, daily life at school is returning to normal. “For the kids who came to school (last week), (learning quality) was still impacted because of poor attendance from other students, but I know that our teachers have tried hard to make all of the materials from class accessible online, and we’ll get back to normal this week,” Qualman said.
Absences due to the ongoing investigation will be handled on a case-by-case basis. “Anecdotally, it seems like attendance was much better today than last week,” Qualman said.
At the time of the interview, Qualman was not sure whether there would be a heightened law enforcement presence in schools this week, a decision that is ultimately made by the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office.
“We always operate with safety as a priority, so our position with our staff is one of vigilance, and our partnership with law enforcement means they’ll be ready and visible in our schools, and with our School Resource Officers engaged and working with kids,” Qualman said. “We’re not assuming anything. We’re going to remain vigilant and do everything we can to make our schools as safe as possible.”
