Viral photo shows schools receiving federal money for academic programs, not ‘school shooting list’

Following a Sept. 4 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, where four people were killed, social media posts began circulating lists of schools claiming the lists showed they had been targeted for violence. 

"Don’t know how true this school shooting list is but I’m not taking this lightly at all," the caption on a Sept. 8 Facebook post said. "It’s going around with so many schools on the list … and being sent to a lot of kids, this is nothing to play about."

The post included photographs and screenshots listing Georgia schools. 

A similar Sept. 12 Facebook post featured an image listing schools in New Mexico. A caption referred to it as a "list of schools who is to be hit with a shooting" and said it had been sent to students through the social media platform Snapchat.  

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Claims of campuses being targeted using similar lists have also surfaced in Alabama, Missouri and Nebraska. Law enforcement agencies in those states confirmed the lists were shared with students through Snapchat and TikTok. 

But officials who investigated the lists said they did not find they were created in relation to school violence threats. Rather, the lists show names of schools that receive federal funding to provide schoolwide and targeted assistance programs for students. 

The list in the Facebook post featuring the Georgia schools even has a title that says "2024 Title I Schools Schoolwide (SWP) and Targeted Assisted (TA)," and the list by that name can be found on the Georgia Department of Education website. The list of New Mexico campuses is available on the state’s public education department website. 

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Title I schoolwide programs are designed to improve a school’s entire educational program so that every student can "demonstrate proficient and advanced levels of achievement on state academic standards," according to the Georgia Department of Education. 

Title I targeted assistance programs are geared toward students at risk of failing who need additional help. 

Spokespeople for the Georgia Department of Education and New Mexico Public Education Department declined to comment on the lists in the social media posts. 

Meghan Frick with the Georgia Department of Education referred us to law enforcement agencies including the Georgia Bureau of Investigations "given the sensitivity of the situation." 

Nelly Miles, Georgia Bureau of Investigations public and government affairs director, said she could not comment directly on the posts as the agency "has had a significant number of online threat allegations this past week" following the Apalachee shooting. However, threats are analyzed and sent to local law enforcement agencies for further follow-up.  

A sheriff in central Georgia directly addressed the lists, warning anyone who uses them to incite a panic by making a fake threat will be arrested. 

"While I don’t know what the [academic programs] means for the Georgia Department of Education, I can assure you that by creating the picture for purposes of creating and inciting a panic and then spreading it, you have become targeted to us," Bleckley County Sheriff Daniel Cape said in a Facebook post. "I’ve given ample warning, it will not be tolerated here."

The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department in Albuquerque investigated the list featuring New Mexico schools and found the threat was not credible, Janelle Garcia, communications director for the state’s public education department, said. 

We rate the claim that photos that show lists of school names are "school shooting lists" False.