COMMERCE CITY, Colo. - While officers swarmed into Adams City High School on March 11, a large crowd of parents gathered, waiting. Many were panicked for their kids' safety.
"Parents should know immediately, as soon as something happens," Amanda Rodriguez told Denver7 that day, frustrated by the lack of response from the school district.
▶️ WATCH: Denver7's Danielle Kreutter takes parents' concerns to district officials
Another parents was seen driving up to the scene, begging the police officers to tell them what was going on.
In the end, what was first reported as an active shooter turned out to be a hoax.
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Parents told Denver7 that it took way too long for them to hear that from the school district. In some cases, Denver7 news crews were letting families know that police were reporting no one was hurt.
"More transparency, definitely more communication and more upfrontness," Adams 14 mother, Brandi Valdez said that day.
Denver7 took the concerns from parents to the school district.
"We tried to be as communicative as possible, given the limitations that we had with what we could put out there as approved by law enforcement," Joseph Salazar, chief legal counsel of Adams 14, said.
The district insists they used their family notification system called ALMA to share what they could, as soon as they could.
"I can't imagine that there's not a parent who signed up with ALMA; they're all signed up," Salazar said.
Salazar and other district officials were among the crowd the day of the incident.
Denver7's Danielle Kreutter asked about the discrepancy between district officials saying they did everything they could and parents saying they feel like they didn't have enough information.
"I don't think it's so much a discrepancy as it is the urgency of the moment," Salazar said. "People are panicked, and they have every right to be panicked. I mean, we're talking about their kids. But I don't think there's a discrepancy. I think it's just a matter of chasing the information on all the platforms that you're signed up on and learning what is happening on those platforms."
He said they also sent out emails and posted to their social media.
"We had a post briefing of the situation and communications is something that we're always willing to to improve," he said. "How can we best get information out there to people? I know that Commerce City Police Department also has evaluated their response and their communication response to community."
When Denver7 in April sat back down with Valdez, a parent, she said she doesn't think parents should have to work that hard during a crisis.
"Sending emails out in the middle of a crisis wasn't the best way to communicate either, because people were getting a lot of their information from the police department on Facebook, students that were in the building and other parents that were around getting information from their kids," she said.
She said she and other concerned parents don't quite agree with the timeline of communication put out by the school district.
"I think that now that we know where some of these breakdowns can occur, now we can go forward and try to make them better," Valdez said.
While the district didn't have any immediate plans to change their communication strategy, they did say they're open to it.
"It will always be an ongoing project to better communications for the community, possibly text messaging. I had heard that parents weren't getting text messages, so that might be something that we could take a look at, but once again, it's going to be the same information that they're getting on emails and through Alma and other other platforms," Salazar said.
Adams 14 reports that approximately 20% of Adams City High School contacts do not have email addresses registered with ALMA. They note that it's possible part of that number includes a household with multiple contacts and only one is signed up for alerts. If families need to update their contact information they can do so at their school or contact the district's registration department at studentrecords@adams14.org or 303-853-3300.
The school district also shared data with Denver7 from their 2024-25 parent and community survey. Of the 177 guardians who took the survey, about 70% said they felt informed about what is going on in their student's school.
The next survey will launch May 2026. The district says they invite community members and families to participate. That survey link will be posted on Adams 14 social media pages as soon as it's published.
