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Saturday, March 19, 2011

Bomb Threat…

The emergency alarms went off Monday morning about half way into first period Language Arts class I was subbing at the Middle School.

We excited (danm dose spel chexers) exited the building and assembled with rest of the school at the far edge of the athletic field and waited. At some point, school administrator(s) tour all the rooms to make sure everyone has left the buildings. When complete, classes are then dismissed one at time back to class and lessons resume.

I’ve been through these drills before and except for the district wide earthquake drill, it usually takes no more than 15-20minutes out of the school day.

After 20mins had passed and there was no indication of anything happening, I approached a group of other teachers to find out what was happening and how much longer it might be before they called “all clear”.

There were discussing the same thing. No one knew what was happening. It was obvious this wasn’t an earthquake drill and there didn’t appear to be any sign of smoke in the air to indicate a real fire.

About 30mins later, after spotting a few police cars in the parking lot, we were told that an anonymous call was made indicating there was a bomb on campus. We were instructed not to tell the kids anything and not to let them back into the school until the search of the school was complete.

It was now obvious to the almost 1000 students on the athletic field that this was no drill as evidenced by the numerous police and school maintenance people poking around trash cans, bathrooms, classrooms and behind the bushes on campus. “But I gotta go BAD!” complaints became more and more frequent from the students standing in line. My advice to “hold it” was not well received.

By the time the police issued an “all clear”, second period was long gone. The school issued a short announcement about the bomb threat and that all kids should skip 2nd period and report to their 3rd period class instead.

The teachers at lunch told me that they’ll probably know who was responsible for the anonymous call in 2-3 days. They explained that it’s most likely a student at the school that made the call. The guy (they knew that much from the phone call) most likely has friends he’ll brag about it to. His friends will have friends and after that, word will spread to the school staff.

I was back at the school Thursday for 8th grade Algebra. The school and police had the name.

No one was surprised…

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know it's just a typo, but the fact that you excited the school is funny!

KauaiMark said...

Yep, it was a typo and it was unintentionally funnier that way.

Thanks for the correction.

The Bus Driver said...

When i was in highschool, the bombing of columbine happened. That year, the school system received daily bomb threats for close to a month to two months. I remember several days where the middle schoolers were sent home early because of the threats. Our threats ranged anywhere from mid morning to after lunch.

A few times, they actually did dismiss the school early. It got to be routine, walking down to the football field and waiting. Eventually, i think the principal made an announcement that they were going to ignore future threats and eventually, the threats, if any, stopped because the game was up.