SACO, Maine — Thornton Academy in Saco evacuated students Thursday morning after officials there received a threat by telephone.
A news release issued by the school indicated students were released at 9:15 a.m.
“Thornton Academy has been in lockdown and the Saco Police Department is on site and has secured the campus in response to a threat received by phone,” the release read, in part. “All students are being released early … in the interest of safety, until we have been able to complete the investigation. This is precautionary as student safety is our highest priority.”
The Thornton Academy evacuation comes on the first day schools in Windham and Raymond — about 25 miles away — are reopened following nearly three days of closure in response to email threats sent to officials in the two-town Regional School Unit 14. In that case, police arrested a 16-year-old Windham male Tuesday night and charged him with eight counts of Class C terrorizing.
The Saco school threat also comes the same day as a home invasion and shooting elsewhere in the town on Hillview Avenue, although police do not believe the two incidents are related, Portland television station WGME, CBS 13, reported.
Kevin Crowley — superintendent of Regional School Unit 21, which includes Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel — told the York County Coast Star he was notified of the threat because Arundel students attend the Saco school.
“They received a threat and went into lockdown,” Crowley told the newspaper.
The school on its Twitter feed posted that the threat is not “credible,” but reiterated that the students were sent home as “a precautionary measure.”
Thornton Academy notified parents in its Thursday morning release that buses were called back to the school to pick up students and bring them home on their normal routes, while students who walk to school were released to walk home as usual.
The middle school called parents of walking students in the younger grades to arrange plans for them to get home, the school said in its release.
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