It has been a difficult week for Carbon County school administrators, handling an unprecedented rash of bomb threats in their school buildings.

Officials at Jim Thorpe School District's Penn-Kidder Elementary were the latest to have to investigate a written threat of a bomb in their building.According to superintendent Brian Gasper, around 11 a.m. Friday, the K-8 school was evacuated after a 'suspicious threat' was found in a lavatory.Kidder Township Police said that someone wrote on the bathroom wall that there was a bomb in the school.Students were not dismissed, but taken to an undisclosed location by bus while police, fire and EMA officials searched the school.The evacuation disrupted classes and reportedly forced the school's kindergarten Christmas concert to be postponed.Around 1:40 p.m., police declared the school all clear and students were able to return for the conclusion of the day.Later that afternoon, Kidder Township police reported that a 13-year-old male student admitted writing the note at the Penn-Kidder school. Police did not identify the suspect because of his age, but said he will face the following charges in juvenile court - felony terroristic threats and misdemeanor charges of reckless endangering and false alarms to agencies of public safety.Penn-Kidder parents said the situation was still frightening, regardless of the other scares around the county.Sara Barnes said that it's any parent's worst nightmare to hear about their child being in danger."You don't expect anything like that to happen in an elementary school. Especially around here. We live in such a nice quiet area," Barnes said.The district kept parents updated throughout the day through its automated message system. Alerts went out after the students were temporarily moved, and again when the building was declared to be cleared."I haven't heard from my son, who is in third grade but have received automated updates from the school," Barnes said in the midst of the threat. "Thankfully everyone is OK!"A total of five threats were reported this week - Jim Thorpe High School, Lehighton Middle School, Panther Valley High School, Panther Valley Intermediate School and the Penn-Kidder campus.School officials say that because of the complexity of evaluating a threat, they have to take all of them seriously."We all want to make sure that students and staff are safe. So we do err on the side of caution," Panther Valley Superintendent Dennis R. Kergick Sr. said.After the threat at Jim Thorpe High School, Gasper said if there is one positive, it's that the district can test out its emergency plans and prove they work. He said district officials conduct their own drills and debrief after each incident they handle."It's an opportunity for us. With all the effort we put into planning, it's good to see it's working," he said.Kergick said he believes many of the threats are the work of copycat students who fail to understand the severity of their actions."I feel that students engage in such activities are simply making bad decisions," he said. "We need parents to discuss such issues with children."The penalties for making a bomb threat are serious.According to Carbon County District Attorney Jean Engler, people over the age of 18 can face jail time for making false reports."Even if someone has no prior record of any kind, and he or she is convicted of a third degree felony, they can be looking at anywhere from probation to 9 months in jail" she said.Prior to the recent rash of threats, they were relatively uncommon, occurring less than once a year, Engler said.She said a relatively recent law requires a person to pay restitution to police and fire departments if they make a false report that causes a building to be evacuated."In a case where it's completely disruptive to hundreds of people, I believe a judge would take it quite seriously. The legislature takes it very seriously as well," she said.