Oxford middle school closes for day due to social media threat after deadly shooting

(OXFORD, Mich.) — Oxford Community Schools announced it is closing its middle school Tuesday due to a social media threat.

The news comes days after the school district in Oxford, Michigan, decided to reopen its high school following last month’s deadly shooting.

“Today, December 13, we received an image from social media that included a specific threat directed at our middle school,” Oxford Community Schools said in a statement posted on its website Monday evening. “We immediately notified law enforcement, who are investigating.”

The school district said that out of an abundance of caution, it is canceling classes in all of the buildings on Tuesday.

“We plan to do a full security check of all our buildings while our security experts and law enforcement conduct their investigation,” the school district said. “Please talk to your students and remind them that all threats at Oxford Community Schools will be taken seriously, investigated by law enforcement, and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Further details about the threat were not released.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said it is working to determine the credibility of the threat to Oxford Middle School but confirmed that it was violent in nature.

“Dozens of threats have been made all across Oakland County in multiple school districts,” Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe told ABC News in an email Tuesday. “It is out of control.”

Four students were killed and seven people were injured at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, after a gunman opened fire. Both the alleged gunman — a 15-year-old student — and his parents have since been arrested and charged.

As middle schoolers stay home on Tuesday, the suspect’s parents are scheduled to appear in court on charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Oxford Community Schools closed its schools after the fatal shooting. Once the school district reopened classroom doors, it did so with various rules in place, such as no backpacks allowed. It also placed law enforcement, private security, trained trauma specialists and additional staff in each building.

Oxford Community Schools superintendent Tim Throne said in a statement last Thursday that every school would also have trained therapy dogs through the rest of the school year.

At the time, Thorne also said that the district was monitoring “all outgoing content from students and staff” and would immediately raise “any concerning images, links to websites and shared items from Google Drive for our technology safety and security team.”

Threats can be reported anonymously to the State of Michigan’s Okay2Say tip line at 8-555-OK2SAY or OKAY2SAY@mi.gov.