Two students at Willis High School were taken into custody Tuesday morning after telling staff members they had a bomb, one day after a loaded gun was found in another student’s backpack on the same campus.
Principal Tiffany Mathews notified families in an email that school resource officers responded and detained both students, who told administrators afterward that they had been joking.
Mathews wrote that comments about bombs, weapons, or violence are treated as serious no matter the intent behind them, even when a student later says it was a joke. No explosive device was found in connection with Tuesday’s incident, according to the school.
Tuesday was also the first day Willis High School required every student to pass through a metal detector and have their backpack searched before entering the building, a policy that started after Monday’s discovery of the loaded gun. Some students said they were late to class because of delays getting through the new screening process.
The district plans to move to a clear backpack requirement starting September 28, with backpacks either provided by the school or purchased by families, though a firm date for full enforcement has not been set.
Monday’s gun was the second firearm found on the Willis High campus since the school year began, following an August 26 incident in which an administrator found a loaded gun in a student’s backpack while investigating a report of vaping. That student said she did not know the gun was inside a backpack she had borrowed.
The following day, a student was detained for threatening to shoot classmates, a comment the student also later described as a joke. A third incident on August 31 involved a social media image of a video game character aiming a gun at the school, though the district said no direct threat accompanied it.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it is working with Willis ISD on the new security measures and reminded families that claiming a threat was a joke does not remove the potential consequences.
The office said statements, social media posts, or messages describing violence toward a school can lead to discipline, investigation or arrest. Under Texas Penal Code Section 46.03, bringing a firearm onto school property can be charged as a third degree felony, carrying a sentence of two to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, and Texas law requires a district to expel any student found to have brought a gun to school.
Willis ISD is not the only Houston area district that has dealt with weapons on campus this year.
A Klein High School student was arrested in March after officials said he brought an unloaded handgun to campus, a weapon other students reported to staff before administrators found it.
In January, a student at Donna ISD’s Garza Elementary School brought a gun onto campus before classes started, though officials said no one was harmed.
Houston ISD and Alief ISD each dealt with separate weapons related incidents on the same day earlier this year, including a bomb threat at Bellaire High School and a stabbing at Sterling High School that led to a brief lockdown.
On Tuesday, the same day as the bomb comments at Willis, a 15-year-old Westfield High School student in Spring ISD was fatally shot on a sidewalk near campus shortly after dismissal, prompting extra law enforcement presence across that district for the rest of the week.
School security requirements grew out of House Bill 3, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2023 following the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde. The law requires school boards to station at least one armed security officer, whether a peace officer, school resource officer or trained marshal, on every campus during school hours, unless a district claims a funding-based exception.
As of last fall, the Texas Education Agency told lawmakers that only about 45 percent of the state’s campuses were in full compliance with the peace officer requirement, with districts and lawmakers from both parties pointing to the law’s limited funding, about $15,000 per campus, as a barrier.
The sheriff’s office and Willis ISD have both asked students and parents to report any concerning behavior or comments about weapons directly to an adult rather than repeating or sharing it.
Mathews asked parents to talk with their children about the seriousness of these kinds of statements.
