A New York village averted a potential school shooting. Parents are still furious.

Erin Richards | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Albion school threat: Parents, students hope district can set example Parents and students in Albion, New York, hope the district can set the standard for the nation when it comes to averting school shootings.

ALBION, N.Y. – The parents packed the middle school auditorium in the evening, full of fear and anger about school safety in their village of 6,000 people.

They'd been told a school shooting plot had been thwarted and three middle schoolers arrested. But their relief was short-lived, and their questions for the superintendent and police chief were just beginning:

Will the students be expelled after their suspensions? Will parents be notified if they return to school? Why are the students home with their parents instead of locked up? How many security cameras does the school have? Why don't we have metal detectors?

Averted threat: Students had plot to 'kill and injure' at school using explosives, guns, N.Y. police say

As school shootings continue to shock American families, including the latest tragedy in Santa Clarita, California, last month, a related trend garners less attention: numerous threats to cause mass violence in school that are thwarted instead of carried out. School leaders say they're getting better at assessing threats, but the steps they take afterward to reassure parents and stabilize communities can bring their own set of complications.

The details of averted school violence have only recently captured the attention of researchers. Efforts to catalog patterns of how shootings unfold may provide new insights into how future tragedies could be prevented.

Still, that information provides little comfort to families whose children are involved in foiled plots, either as the perpetrators or the intended victims. For administrators, little direct guidance exists on how to respond and communicate with families about threats to school safety.

There's even less agreement on how to treat students convicted of planning an attack – from the school disciplinary process to how to integrate them back into a community.

"We are scared to send our kids to school," Kelly Brannan, an Albion parent, said to the superintendent in the auditorium that night.

"We worry about those kids coming back and sitting next to our kids."

A plan to 'kill and injure' students and staff

"Those kids" in Albion are three teenage boys facing charges of second-degree conspiracy to commit murder at their middle school. They remain on suspension, at home under their parents' care, because New York law calls for them to be placed in the least restrictive environment that will ensure their return to court.

Albion police say the boys were in the logistical stages of a plan to enter the school with explosives, incendiary devices and firearms. Their goal, police say: kill and injure students and staff.

The plot, which police say was discussed on an online communication platform called Discord, became known in early November. A student who received a threat from another student reported it to a teacher, who reported it to an administrator, who reported it to the district and to the school resource officer.

What is Discord? 5 things to know about the gamers' messaging platform

A court order forbids the boys from using electronic devices, accessing the internet, stepping on school grounds, or possessing any weapons. They also are barred from contacting three other students listed in court documents.

Schools across the country deal with security threats every day, but many are not credible and do not require responses from multiple agencies, search warrants, arrests and a seizure of (legally held) weapons from the homes of students – as the Albion case did.

Coincidentally, the district had only recently created a formal team to respond to school safety threats. This was the first incident to require its attention.

"I hoped we'd never need to use it," said Albion Superintendent Michael Bonnewell.

Experts: Invest in relationships before bulletproof glass

School security experts say some of the best internal defenses schools have against mass violence are communication, cooperation and planning. That means having teams to assess and respond to students who could pose a threat, processes for quickly determining which threats are serious and plans to swiftly address any that are.

Districts should also seek to nurture trusting relationships between students and adults, so that students feel empowered to say something if they hear or notice something unusual, experts say.

Instead of focusing on those areas, however, many districts and states have rushed to invest in equipment to "harden" schools against intruders or illegal weapons, bolstering a school security industry that's now valued at around $3 billion.

“We know that most shootings involved a failure of people, policies and procedures, and yet schools are still investing in facial scanners,” said Ken Trump, a nationally known school safety expert.

How to keep schools safe: Schools are focusing time, energy and money on 'all the wrong things'

Studies of attempted and actual school shooters show that most people who attempt or complete an attack are current or former students – who likely already know how to sneak weapons into the building. Most also discussed their plans in advance or exhibited behaviors that led to warning signs before the planned assault, research shows.

That's why Trump stresses that schools invest in relationships with students and in staff training over gadgets like identification systems and bulletproof glass.

"You’re not going to notice a difference in a kid's behavior on a Friday if you don’t know what that kid is about on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday," Trump added.

Outside of schools, 18 states now allow law enforcement or family members to petition a court to temporarily remove the guns from the home of someone they believe may harm themselves or others – measures known as "red flag laws."

In three states – New York, California and Hawaii – school officials can now petition the court if they believe a student poses such a danger.

Expanded Red Flag laws: Educators are now key to thwarting school shootings

Would-be school shooters: Who they are

School shooting violence accounts for less than 1% of all gun violence in America. That means that students are still very safe at schools, statistically speaking.

But nobody knows exactly how many threats are made against individual schools each year, because few if any states mandate that districts track and publicly report the incidents and actions taken.

Ohio has a bill in the works that would require more reporting on that issue, and Florida has a group exploring how to make that data more public, according to the Florida Department of Education.

In the meantime, two major efforts to track averted and completed mass school violence are creating a portrait of would-be school shooters to help inform the debate over preventative measures.

What they show: Almost all the would-be and actual shooters were in mental distress, with a diagnosed illness or struggling with life in some way. Most leaked their plans in advance. Most used a weapon obtained or stolen from a family member or friend.

Started in the aftermath of the Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017, The Violence Project's database has tracked mass shootings of four or more people since 1969. Since the widely publicized Columbine High School shooting in 1999, it identified about 60 averted school shootings and 13 that were carried out.

A separate project, Averted School Violence, has tracked 139 attempted but thwarted mass violence in schools since 1999. The tally is higher because its database includes shootings as well as stabbings and bombings that individuals planned to carry out on school campuses.

Averted School Violence is supported by the National Police Foundation. Law enforcement and school officials help maintain it.

Both projects are receiving federal funding from the Department of Justice.

Patterns in the databases show large, suburban high schools are the primary targets of mass violence, and instigators are typically white, suburban males in their teens or early 20s.

Most would-be attackers also had a precipitating life crisis within the previous six months, according to traits examined by Averted School Violence.

"The good news is that most shooters come from inside the school," said Frank Straub, director of mass violence response studies at the National Police Foundation.

"I look at that as a potential advantage because the students are there and in contact with teachers and staff and other students, and there’s a greater opportunity to identify people in need of intervention or help."

Research from The Violence Project showed "virtually all" school shooters were suicidal, said Jillian Peterson, a researcher at Hamline University and co-founder of the effort.

She sees that as a hopeful finding because it suggests some of the same principles for suicide prevention can be applied to preventing would-be school shooters.

Specifically, she said, that means asking kids directly about their plans, engaging people around them to do safety checks, and making sure they don’t have access to weapons.

Superintendents: Should we tell parents about threats?

District leaders often struggle with how much to share with parents about school safety threats. Disclosing too much or too little can have negative consequences, depending on the school and the community.

Reed McCracken, a high school principal in rural Vermont, said the vast majority of bomb threats in his school are pranks, many occurring around exam time. He's concerned that the more attention threats receive, the more they may occur.

"If you went around running scared all the time, you'd just be encouraging people to do it more," McCracken said.

Community concerns: Albion parents question district, police in wake of middle school attack plot

In Albion, the community meeting held at the middle school after the threat allowed parents to vent their frustrations.

Many applauded when someone suggested the district install metal detectors to protect the district's 1,800-some students. Others threatened to remove their children from school if the superintendent didn't expel the accused boys.

Bonnewell, the superintendent, said he'd take the issue of metal detectors to the school board. But many districts nationwide are phasing the scanners out because of criticism that they've treated students like criminals or conveyed a lack of trust.

As for expelling the students, experts say expulsions don't necessarily guarantee a safe building in the aftermath of a threat. In fact, they can breed a grievance.

"The most common motivation of school shooters is one of either revenge or glory, and sometimes it's both," said Scott Poland, a psychology professor and expert in youth suicide and violence prevention at Nova Southeastern University.

Peterson, the researcher from The Violence Project, said districts are under pressure from the community, media and law enforcement to come down hard on students who make credible threats.

“But this kid is likely in crisis," she added. "If anyone is close to the edge, this could push them over.”

Parents: 'Nobody feels safe'

To many concerned parents, however, that approach feels far too lenient.

LaVertha Lynch grew up in the small town of Albion, just like her parents did. After graduating and moving away, she returned to raise her own children in a community she viewed as safe.

She said the accused boys should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“I feel that as a small community, we have a huge responsibility to the rest of the nation to stand up and set the standard of zero tolerance for violence,” Lynch said.

Ultimately, the accused boys' proceedings in family court will be shielded, because the middle schoolers are minors. However, the town is so small that most people know who they are, and most will likely hear about the outcome of the judicial process.

Bonnewell said he couldn't predict the outcome of their school disciplinary hearings.

Lynch said she doesn't know what words to use to reassure her children.

"Nobody feels safe or secure," she said. "We don't know what to do."

Erin Richards is a national education reporter based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Contributing: Georgie Silvarole, Jon Campbell, Sean Lahman, Joseph Spector and Will Cleveland from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in New York; April Barton from the Burlington Free Press in Vermont; CD Davidson-Hiers from the Tallahassee Democrat in Florida; and Jessie Balmert from the Cincinnati Enquirer in Ohio.

Education coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation does not provide editorial input.