State police at Lehighton are investigating an alleged threat in the Palmerton Area School District through social media.

Contacted Friday morning, Superintendent Scot Engler said the alleged threats "all occurred outside of school hours.""The district, and state police, are aware of alleged threats being distributed via the Internet after school hours," Engler said. "This is an unfortunate and frustrating example of the unsupervised, and inappropriate usage of, social media by an individual or individuals in the community."Engler said, "The state police are actively investigating this issue, and expect to resolve those concerns in the very near future. The district is extremely grateful for the efforts of the state police, and we are actively cooperating with their investigation."Because of the investigation, Engler said he could not release specifics about the nature of the threat, the social media platform used, or if was aimed at a particular school or student.Engler said, "Parents of the individual children involved have been contacted."