How would N.J. schools handle a L.A.-like bomb threat?

New Jersery's public schools received nearly 800 bomb threats over the last decade, according to state statistics.

TRENTON -- It happened at least 57 times in New Jersey public schools last year, according to state school violence statistics.

Some time during the school year, someone threatened to blow up a school. In some cases, the bomb threat came via email or social media. In other cases, it may have been an old-fashioned anonymous phone call or handwritten note.

Some schools -- including Hackensack High School, Fort Lee High School and Garfield High School-- closed for the day or evacuated while bomb squads searched their buildings and investigated threats during the 2014-2015 school year.

But, in other cases the bomb threats were quickly deemed hoaxes and parents and students likely never knew there was a problem.

The procedures for handling bomb threats were highlighted earlier this week when several of the nation's largest public school systems received emailed threats with similar wording.

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Los Angeles school officials said the threat, which mentioned bombs, nerve gas, guns and jihadists, was credible enough to close more than 1,000 schools for the day. But, New York school officials kept schools opened after police reviewed the threat and deemed it an obvious hoax.

How would a similar threat be handled in New Jersey?

The state's public schools are required to follow a series of protocols outlined in a 71-page state document, titled the Uniform State Memorandum of Agreement Between Education and Law Enforcement Officials, state education officials said.

But, the procedures largely leave it up to local school officials and police to decide when a threat is serious enough to shut down schools.

"State officials recognize that what works in one community might not in another, so there is a good deal of discretion when it comes to handling specific events," said Michael Yaple, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.

School officials are required to call in police whenever they receive a threat "in which a reasonable person would believe that the person genuinely intends at some time in the future to commit the violent act or to carry out the threat," according to the rules.

Over the last decade, New Jersey schools reported nearly 800 bomb threats, including 57 reported during the 2014-2015 school year, according to annual school violence and vandalism reports reviewed by NJ Advance Media.

The statewide reports do not detail how the bomb threats were received or whether schools were evacuated. The reports did not include details on other potential threats to schools, including threatened shootings or terrorism.

The number of bomb threats varied widely over the last decade, from a low of 43 during the 2011-2012 school year to a high of 144 during the 2007-2008 school year, according to the state statistics.

In the vast majority of the cases, the bomb threats to schools were hoaxes, according to the reports.

But some real and fake explosives have been found in New Jersey schools. Since 2005, at least 16 unexploded bombs and 21 fake bombs were recovered, according to the footnotes of the annual reports. The statistics did not detail which school districts reported the bombs.

Even hoaxes can be disruptive to schools and traumatizing for students and teachers, school officials said.

Last year, a series of bomb threats forced the evacuation of seven schools and other buildings in Bergen County. The threats were phoned in to Hackensack High School, Garfield High School, Fort Lee High School, Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood and the Leonia Board of Education offices in November 2014, according to Bergen County Police.

County and state police used search dogs to survey the buildings, but found no explosives.

"It was very disruptive to the schools and it was very disruptive to the entire town," Leonia Chief of Police Thomas Rowe said at the time. "I saw kids that looked very scared."

But, Rowe had no regrets about the decision by law enforcement and school officials to evacuate schools and offices.

"When it comes to school security, for me there are no pranks," Rowe said.

Finding the identity of those making bomb threats can be elusive. Few of the threats at schools in New Jersey have resulted in arrests, according to the state school violence statistics.

In October, a Connecticut man was sentenced to a year in prison for a series of "swatting" incidents that included bomb threats to two schools in Monmouth County.

Matthew Tollis, 22, was convicted of phoning in threats to Saint John Vianney High School in Holmdel and Allentown High School. He was part of an online  group of Microsoft XBox gamers who allegedly made hoax threats against schools and other venues across the country.

In July, a task force convened by Gov. Chris Christie recommended New Jersey schools upgrade their security in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting that left 26 people dead in 2012.

The recommendations included stationing police officers in every New Jersey public school building and improving school response times to emergency situations, including bomb threats. Many of the task force's recommendations focused on better training for school officials and paying more attention to potential threats, the report said.

"A lot can be accomplished in the name of school safety and security at a substantially lower cost simply by changing human behavior and increasing human vigilance and activity," the report said.