People stand at the entrance to Central High School in East Corinth Monday as the school was evacuated because of a bomb threat. Buy Photo
CORINTH, Maine — Another bomb threat shut down Central High School on Monday morning, forcing students and staff to evacuate the building and further frustrating students and parents upset with the frequent disruptions.
“This is their fourth one this year,” parent Jennifer Lodge of Corinth said while law enforcement investigators searched the school. “They had eight last year. This is a problem.”
Superintendent Dan Higgins said Monday evening that the evacuation was only the second one so far this year and that he believed there were only five last year.
School officials have made efforts to prevent the false reports, but precautions must be taken to ensure student safety, Higgins said earlier in the day while standing in the school parking lot.
Monday’s threat was “specific enough to activate our emergency response plan,” he said. “We evacuated our students to an alternate location, accounted for all of them and secured the facility.”
The approximately 375 students were evacuated at around 11:20 a.m., said Higgins, who declined to identify how the most recent threat was made.
“Law enforcement is on-site now conducting the investigation,” he said at around 1 p.m.
Penobscot County Sheriff's Department deputies and Maine State Police troopers went to the school and searched the building with bomb-sniffing dogs. No explosive device was found, and the last deputy left the school at 3:45 p.m.
Jennifer Lodge knew something was wrong when she attempted to call the school that morning to let office staff know that she would be picking up her daughter Alexis Lodge, 16, and no one answered the phone.
“I started calling her friends because I didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “I said, ‘I bet there’s another bomb threat.’”
Parents are not immediately called when there is a bomb threat, she said. Students are sent home with a notice that the event occurred.
Some larger school systems, including those in Bangor and Brewer, have implemented an emergency notification system to keep parents informed of emergency events.
Brewer School Committee members approved implementing the Immediate Response Information System, dubbed the IRIS, in March, and Bangor school officials approved piloting the IRIS program that same month with administrators at Vine Street School.
IRIS simultaneously calls or sends a text message to parents and staff to inform them of events. Higgins said implementing a similar system is something school leaders plan to discuss. SAD 64 is composed of Bradford, Corinth, Hudson, Kenduskeag and Stetson.
Alexis Lodge said she and her fellow students are aggravated with the continued disruptions.
“I think it sucks,” she said.
In addition to backpack checks, the school has implemented a system where areas of the building, including the restrooms, are restricted.
“Only one person can go at a time,” the teenager said. “We have to sign in and back out. It takes us like 15 minutes.”
She said most of the threats have been written on the girls restroom walls, a statement that Higgins declined to verify.
Higgins said the Lodges are not alone in their aggravation.
“The overwhelming number of students feel the same way,” he said. “It’s very frustrating because of the nature of the disruption. It disrupts the whole school day.”
The recent incident at Stockton Springs school, where an armed man held a group of fifth-graders hostage on Friday and later released them unharmed, has put school systems on alert and added to the alarm, Higgins said.
Central High School students did not return to the school Monday.
“We’ll be back in school tomorrow with additional security measures in place,” Higgins said without divulging what they might be. “The investigation is ongoing.”
If investigators find a suspect, they will be prosecuted, he said.
“It’s a criminal incident and will be treated as such,” Higgins said. “In today’s environment and today’s culture, you don’t have any choice but to do that.”
On 11/4/08 at 1:33 AM,
AmericanBandstandPA wrote:
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The report did not state HOW the notification of the bomb threat came into the school. Probably by phone. If this has now become a trend per statistics, why in heck does not the Maine government (failed once again, huh) implement some controls to wiretap the school's incoming and outgoing phone lines to at least TRY to track where the call evoluted from? Seems eveyone is running around the farmyard like scared and confused chickens instead of trying to intelligently track and solve this terroristic activity!
On 11/4/08 at 9:46 AM,
netsirk815 wrote:
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i do feel for these kids and families... but try having 27... yes thats what i said 27 bomb threats your senior year in high school and having to go to school on a saturday to make up for the time missed because you had to be evacuated every time and then tell me you're upset.
On 11/4/08 at 3:21 PM,
kazman wrote:
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I went to Central way back when, never had one bomb scare in four years to my recollection. Fire false alarms sure, but bomb scares, those were the big leagues. Hate to say it, but AmericanBandstandPA does have a point, the reaction to this action is pretty intense, and that does have an unfortunate side effect of incentivizing future hooligans.
On 11/4/08 at 4:04 PM,
Erica90210 wrote:
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Ok I go to this school and I am a freshmen. We have had four bomb threats I think and then two we have been out from about eleven to the end of the day. This last one we didn't finish the day, nor get back into the building at the end of the day like the last one. Usually the bomb threat has been writtin in the batheroom(s), I don't know if by phone or not; we would probably go home if by phone. I do agree that this does indeed suck, because we do have to sign out the time we leave the classroom and then the time we get back, and if we go to the batheroom, we must sign in and out as well. It is getting worse to have a bomb threat because it is getting colder outside and it is just a pain in general. Last year in the middle school we only had like two or three bomb threats out of the whole time I was in the middle school, and I wish that this would just stop once and for all because if this keeps up, we will have to add another day to our school year, just for being outside or somewhere else. This just makes me so mad!!! :o(
On 11/4/08 at 4:19 PM,
ydnar723 wrote:
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Maine Gov't only cares about skinny dipping for free lunches in Greenville and bringing them to Dover for hearings.
Our schools need to be safer, with extra measures with who can go to the bathroom in place can't even get the culprit. But if we make our schools safer, we will end up next election day voting against some tax to cover that extra security.
When I was in school we had bomb threats (maybe 2 in one year) one was a note, one was a phone call, culprit caught in both cases. Curious how these threats get in nowadays.
Sadly it takes a lot of this, and children in harms way for the state to have the magic lightbulb turn on and say "Gee you think we should do something about this?"
On 11/4/08 at 7:55 PM,
wsherrywood wrote:
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I am a parent of a CHS student and this is the first time I have heard of bomb threats this school year! I am outraged by the fact that is allowed to continue....last year I can't even count how many times my children came home and told me there was another bomb threat at school and the children are not sent home, they were made to stand out in the ball field for hours without being able to phone home or to use the rest room. At what point does this school district decide to take action. When does any of this sort of activity become serious enough for the Government to step in and take control, oh that's right the Government doesn't care..... My fear is that the end result will be more than just a scare and the students will be in grave danger. Get it together CHS and buckle down and take action.
On 11/17/08 at 5:05 PM,
arkelly wrote:
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wsherrywood: how would the government "step in and take control" of a bomb threat that was most likely made by a student? Would you like them to monitor your child's actions to see if he/she is the culprit? Maybe embed a GPS chip into every child so you know where everyone was at the moment the threat was made? Take DNA from every child from birth as a comparison against the letter? Let's not forget that the culprits and the victims of these are probably all in the same group, so be careful what you wish for. Behind every hooligan is a parent, how about starting there and saving some tax $$ for more important items like...books?
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