By TER­RY TANG-As­so­ci­at­ed Press

In the af­ter­math of the el­e­men­tary school mas­sacre in Uvalde, Texas, schools around the U.S. have brought in ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty staff and re­strict­ed vis­i­tors as they deal with a new rash of copy­cat threats.

For some fam­i­lies and ed­u­ca­tors it all has added to un­easi­ness in the wake of the dead­liest school shoot­ing since the 2012 at­tack at Sandy Hook El­e­men­tary School.

Jake Green, 34, of Los Alam­os, New Mex­i­co, was jolt­ed when he saw a plain­clothes po­lice of­fi­cer for the first time while walk­ing his 7-year-old daugh­ter in­to school Fri­day morn­ing. He grew up in Col­orado, not far from where two Columbine High School stu­dents shot and killed 12 class­mates and a teacher in 1999. Green re­mem­bers at­tend­ing memo­ri­als and can­dle­light vig­ils as a fifth-grad­er, but he’s torn about whether hav­ing po­lice at his daugh­ter’s school is best.

“In a way, I don’t re­al­ly feel any safer with po­lice around,” Green said. “See­ing the po­lice there, it re­al­ly made it seem like the worst pos­si­bil­i­ty was even more pos­si­ble to­day.”

In El Pa­so, Texas, where a gun­man killed 23 peo­ple in a racist 2019 at­tack that tar­get­ed His­pan­ics at a Wal­mart, schools are on edge. The El Pa­so In­de­pen­dent School Dis­trict has al­ready en­coun­tered some re­port­ed threats that turned out to be false. They were ei­ther “stu­dents jok­ing or over­ly-sen­si­tive par­ents,” said Gus­ta­vo Rev­e­les Acos­ta, a dis­trict spokesper­son.

 “Our com­mu­ni­ty is still raw from that in­ci­dent,” Acos­ta said. “It hits us in a pret­ty emo­tion­al way.”

The dis­trict, which has its own po­lice de­part­ment, has al­so stepped up pa­trolling at all 85 cam­pus­es. Of­fi­cers have been pulled from mon­i­tor­ing traf­fic or oth­er du­ties. Schools al­ready have up­dat­ed cam­era sur­veil­lance sys­tems. Vis­i­tors are re­quired to ring a door­bell and show iden­ti­fi­ca­tion be­fore they can en­ter.

The dis­trict is mak­ing a point to look out for teach­ers’ and stu­dents’ men­tal health. A coun­sel­ing team has been vis­it­ing every school to speak about the shoot­ing in Uvalde. They are al­so urg­ing peo­ple to talk in pri­vate about any dis­tress.

Mia Bau­com, a 15-year-old stu­dent at a Forth Worth, Texas, high school said it was sur­re­al to think the Uvalde killings hap­pened in her home state. It al­so stirred mem­o­ries of a lock­down at her school two months ago that was prompt­ed by a shoot­ing.

“I’m a lit­tle more stressed out about it be­cause just the fear of what if that hap­pened at my school?” said Bau­com, whose last day of school was Thurs­day. “Let’s say we get more po­lice of­fi­cers. Most like­ly that’s not go­ing to stop peo­ple from go­ing crazy and just shoot­ing up schools.”

Schools have ramped up po­lice pres­ence in a host of states, in­clud­ing Con­necti­cut, Michi­gan and New York, af­ter the shoot­ing Tues­day that left 19 stu­dents and two teach­ers dead.

In Buf­fa­lo, New York, where a white gun­man fa­tal­ly shot 10 peo­ple in a racist at­tack in a su­per­mar­ket on May 14, the largest school dis­trict an­nounced new se­cu­ri­ty rules ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly. Any vis­i­tors — par­ents, sib­lings, ven­dors — have to call ahead for ap­proval. No ex­cep­tions will be made. They may be sub­ject­ed to a search by a wand de­tec­tor. Doors will be locked at all times.

In Jack­sonville, Flori­da, the Du­val Coun­ty Pub­lic Schools’ chief of school po­lice banned back­packs or large hand­bags at any school through Fri­day, the last day of school. Small purs­es were al­lowed but could be searched.

A dis­cred­it­ed threat against a mid­dle school prompt­ed a Texas school dis­trict 200 miles (320 kilo­me­ters) south­east of Uvalde to end the school year a week ear­ly. The Kingsville In­de­pen­dent School Dis­trict an­nounced Fri­day would be the last day of school. But stu­dents should not see any penal­ty for the pre­ma­ture end to the year.

“In light of the tragedy in Uvalde, there has been an enor­mous amount of stress and trau­ma. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, more stress and trau­ma are added with ‘copy-cat threats’ that start cir­cu­lat­ing such as the one that was sent to­day for Gillett (Mid­dle School),” Su­per­in­ten­dent Dr. Cis­sy Reynolds-Perez wrote in a state­ment on the dis­trict’s web­site.

It’s clear staff and stu­dents na­tion­wide are on edge as sev­er­al re­ports of firearm sight­ings on cam­pus­es have popped up in the past few days.

Two Seat­tle-area schools went in­to lock­down Fri­day morn­ing and po­lice even­tu­al­ly re­cov­ered an air­soft gun. The Everett, Wash­ing­ton, schools then had their lock­downs lift­ed.

Two peo­ple were ar­rest­ed Thurs­day af­ter a Den­ver high school locked down its cam­pus. Po­lice found a paint­ball gun but no oth­er firearms. Class­es were can­celed any­way.