East Lyme — As the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continue to investigate a threat made on social media last week, school officials postponed the boys’ basketball games that had been scheduled for Tuesday and said they will step up security for the return of school.

The school district will hold classes as scheduled next Monday, the first day back after winter break, but with additional safety protocols in place, said Superintendent of Schools James Lombardo.

“There will be police presence at every one of the schools throughout the day, and we will be administering additional screening procedures at the schools for safety and security purposes,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Law enforcement has been investigating an online post that appeared Christmas Eve on Yik Yak, an anonymous app. The post stated: “East Lyme better get ready for the hail of bullets I’ve been bullied to [sic] long and after break I’m going to let all my anger out.”

The additional screening procedures will include backpack checks at both the middle school and high school.

“In order to avoid lengthy searches, students are encouraged to keep their backpacks home if they can avoid bringing them to school next week,” Lombardo in an email to the school community on Tuesday. “Parents and visitors should also expect additional procedures when they seek entrance to our schools.”

Town police said Tuesday that no additional information was available on the investigation. Yik Yak did not respond to The Day’s request for comment about its role in the investigation.

In addition to postponing the boys’ basketball games against Haddam-Killingworth, Lombardo a day earlier called off the girls’ holiday basketball tournament that was to take place that evening at East Lyme High School.

He said police and local officials who met Tuesday morning did not see the need to cancel that night’s games and would make available both state and local police for security. But, after talking to school officials in both districts, he decided it would be prudent to reschedule the games after the break. He said bringing in the additional school staff to provide the necessary screening procedures would have been difficult over the holiday break.

The events originally slated for Tuesday at the high school included boys’ varsity, junior varsity and freshman basketball games, according to the teams’ schedules.

Lombardo said the police have been very helpful in offering assistance, and the police presence at the schools could continue for additional days beyond next Monday if it is deemed necessary.

Lombardo had first informed the school community about the social media post through an email on Monday.

“As you may have read or heard, a posting on a social media site has directed serious threats against the East Lyme community,” Lombardo wrote in Monday’s email. “While our schools were not specifically mentioned in the posting, we are treating this threat as a serious matter and are working closely with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to assist them in their investigation.”

He encouraged parents to contact the police at (860) 739-5900 if they hear anything that may assist the police with the investigation.

According to law enforcement guidelines on Yik Yak’s website, Yik Yak does not collect identification information from users — such as names and addresses — but keeps a log of the Internet Protocol addresses, GPS coordinates and time and date related to each message. Under federal law, Yik Yak may provide information to law enforcement if requested in response to an emergency situation.

“Any information Yik Yak provides in response to emergency requests is limited to what we believe would prevent the harm,” the guidelines state. “This may include a user’s IP address, GPS coordinates, message timestamps, and/or the contents of other messages from the user’s posting history.”

k.drelich@theday.com

Twitter: @KimberlyDrelich