Annual School Threat Impact Report 2024–2025
Every year, TDR Technology Solutions’ School Threat Pipeline tracks bomb threats, shooting threats, swatting, and social-media threats across more than 120,000 U.S. schools, and calculates what they cost taxpayers. This is a summary of the Annual School Threat Impact Report, 2024–2025.
The headline finding
In the 2024–25 school year, school threats cost U.S. taxpayers roughly $946 million — part of a $2.10 billion toll since 2021. Threats reached schools in 435 congressional districts (including D.C. and Puerto Rico) — nearly the entire country — producing about 24.2 million student exposures. No state was spared.
The cost nobody counts
Most reporting on a school threat stops at the visible police response. Two of the largest costs go almost entirely unreported: the lost instructional time when students are evacuated or locked down, and the mental-health toll on students, parents, and staff. Our analysis finds the mental-health impact is the single biggest driver of the total cost — and the least measured. The methodology behind these figures is published academic work (Bernhardt & Beeler, 2026, in Policing, Violence, and Society, Springer).
Explore the data
- School Threats by State — the share of each state’s students exposed and the cost to taxpayers, searchable and sortable.
- School Threats by Congressional District — all 435 districts, searchable by district and representative.
Who is behind the threats
The people making these threats are overwhelmingly young — teenagers and young adults, many organized in online networks such as 764 and “The Com,” and, at the most sophisticated end, state-sponsored actors. Read our explainers on what swatting is and 764, The Com, and nihilistic violent extremism.
The bottom line: these threats are preventable
Swatting and hoax threats are a learned behavior, and they can be stopped. A combination of screening technology, real consequences, and student education intercepts threats before they disrupt a school and deters future ones. That is what TDR’s SAM (School Access Manager) suite was built to do. Reporters and school leaders: for interviews, custom data, or a district-by-district breakdown, see our press briefing or contact us.
Source: TDR Technology Solutions, Annual School Threat Impact Report 2024–2025. Figures are drawn from TDR’s School Threat Pipeline and NCES/IPEDS enrollment data.
Related reading: The Real Cost of School Swatting · The Cost of Hate: Putting a Number on Threats of Violence