A bomb threat aimed at multiple Howard County high schools surfaced online this week, prompting heightened safety precautions at Howard High School and Guilford Park High School even as officials said the messages did not appear credible. The Howard County Public School System confirmed that social media threats had been made against several area schools in recent days, and Howard County police opened an investigation into the posts.
According to CBS News Baltimore, HCPSS and law enforcement indicated the threat did not appear credible, though the district said it was treating the situation with the utmost seriousness. Guilford Park High School Principal Josh Wasilewski said online posts included a bomb threat directed at multiple area high schools, including his own campus. Howard High School was also targeted by social media threats, and both schools maintained heightened safety precautions while the posts were evaluated.
Community discussions circulating this week pointed to a threat said to have been posted on Canvas under the name Maryland Hackers United, according to a thread on r/ColumbiaMD. The reported post prompted questions about digital security.
How Schools Responded on the Ground
At Howard High School, Principal Allen Cosentino's building relied on its school resource officer, who works with school security personnel and administration officials and maintains a visible presence throughout the day, per the same CBS Baltimore report. Both Howard and Guilford Park sent families digital safety guidance in the wake of the threats. Schools advised students to report suspicious posts to a trusted adult, school official, or law enforcement rather than sharing or screenshotting concerning material themselves.
The guidance also told students not to share passwords, verification codes, daily schedules, or other personal identifying details publicly, and warned against clicking unknown links, QR codes, or attachments from unrecognized accounts. HCPSS said it had partnered with federal law enforcement and the Howard County Police Department, implementing monitoring and investigation of the threats while prioritizing the safety of students and staff. The district also said counselors and staff were prepared to support any students in need.
A Pattern Stretching Back to June
This is not the first round of online threats to hit Howard County schools this year. In June, Howard County schools announced extra precautions after several online threats, including one targeting Reservoir High School that forced an evacuation of that campus, and another aimed at Clarksville Middle School. The recurrence of these incidents across different campuses and months has kept school security procedures under repeated strain.
Howard County has faced a similar scenario before. Hoodline previously reported that HCPSS canceled after-school activities at three high schools — Guilford Park, Atholton, and Hammond — in February while police investigated a fight rumor. Police did not believe there was an active threat.
The Legal Risk for Anyone Behind a Hoax
Under Maryland Code of Criminal Law Section 3-1001, making a threat of mass violence targeting five or more people is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 10 years in prison, fines of up to $10,000, and mandatory restitution to cover emergency response costs, according to Justia's summary of state law.
Howard County School Resource Officers operate in high schools under a memorandum of understanding between HCPSS and the Howard County Police Department, a structure that traces back to a 2021 policy reform restricting SRO deployment to high schools while requiring body-worn cameras and softer polo uniforms, according to Howard County Government records.
Part of a Larger District Security Picture
HCPSS operates 78 public schools and education centers, including 13 comprehensive high schools and 20 middle schools, serving 57,031 total enrolled students in the current school year, according to the district's own enrollment figures. That scale means districtwide security alerts like this week's ripple out to tens of thousands of families at once, even when the underlying threat turns out to be unfounded.
The bomb threat also lands amid a broader stretch of school-safety scrutiny in Howard County. In January 2025, HCPSS agreed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to make changes following findings involving antisemitic incidents across 16 schools over two academic years. Earlier this month, Howard County Police opened an investigation after antisemitic graffiti sat unnoticed for weeks on an exterior wall at Phelps Luck Elementary School before being discovered and removed.
