CINCINNATI — Local educators were on high alert after a reported social media challenge that encouraged students to threaten to shoot and bomb their schools on Friday. In response, districts across the Tri-State increased security efforts. Investigators said a post urging students to skip school morphed into something that encouraged students to threaten violence.

The Department of Homeland Security said it's monitoring the "TikTok Challenge," but wasn't aware of any credible threats to schools.

"This is the most extreme challenge I've ever heard of," said Lt. Ron Murphy with the Norwood Police department. Murphy said law enforcement has to take these threats seriously, but they can deplete resources and cost departments a lot of money in overtime payments.

All local districts ended Friday without any incidents of gun violence, but the psychological impact of these types of threats is something that teachers, students and their parents will have to deal with.

“I don't think for the kids it was too overwhelming, but I do know that my son was worried about going to school today," said Norwood Middle School parent Michael Kirkland. “It’s sad. Unfortunately, the sad world we live in. With technology comes, obviously, a lot of bad sides with the good.”

WCPO had not been able to independently confirm the challenge, and TikTok announced on Thursday it had not found evidence of threats originating on the app.

Related: Schools adding police presence ahead of TikTok challenge calling on students to make threats Friday
Related: Department of Homeland Security on TikTok Challenge: 'Remain alert'

CINCINNATI —

There was no school Thursday in Reading because of alleged threats of violence by a 13-year-old student.

Police arrested the teen Wednesday night. A classmate said the suspect indicated he would "shoot up the school" after arguing with some girls who made him mad, police said.

The decision to cancel classes came despite the fact Reading's new school building features state-of-the-art security measures that WLWT investigator Todd Dykes saw first-hand during a tour two years ago.

"Schools have done a very, very good job learning what to do, learning how to manage risk," John Paul Wright said.

Wright is a professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. He said families impacted by school threats need to remember educators are not trained detectives.

"They're not always going to be correct," Wright said. "We're asking them to make predictions about the future based off limited information that's very difficult, sometimes, to ascertain whether it's real, true, what have you."

Determining if a student's threatening statement is real is a priority for juvenile justice experts like Judge Melissa Powers and former judge John Williams. Under Williams, Hamilton County's Juvenile Court began using data and analysis to understand better a child's motive.

"That does go into the social media for the child," Williams said. "It goes into the psychological, substance abuse, family dealings — all these things that we want to look at."

"It could be they just want attention. They do something, say something stupid out of anger but didn't have any meaning behind it," Powers said. "Or it could be, 'No. There's really some serious issues, psychological issues that we need to be addressing.'"

"You have to be dealing with this. You have to be out front," Williams said. "You have to lean forward into the school so we can help kids not have this sort of thing happen."

Recent threats have not been limited to the Reading Community City School District. Police investigated troubling social media comments in Colerain and Hamilton Thursday. WLWT has also learned that a threat against Fairfield Freshman School, a cause for concern Wednesday, came from somewhere outside the state of Ohio.