BAR HARBOR, Maine — Without releasing detailed information, Mount Desert Island schools Superintendent Marc Gousse said Thursday that students and staff at the local high school have been asked to be more guarded than usual when at the school on Friday.
Gousse said that there has not been any specific or credible threat made against any student or staff member or toward any school, but extra security measures will be in place Friday at the high school. All scheduled classes and activities will go ahead as planned, he said.
Gousse said that the reason for the precautions is that someone — he would not say who — is scheduled to be released from incarceration on Friday. He declined to provide further details other than to say the person being released has “indirect family connections” to MDI High School.
Matthew Haney, principal of the high school, sent a message to parents on Thursday informing them of the precautions.
“Beginning at 8:30 [a.m. Friday] all doors, including the main entrance, will be locked,” Haney wrote in the message. “Staff will be in the main lobby to provide entry to appropriate family members and visitors.”
Police will be at the school throughout the day and all students will be kept inside the main building, Haney indicated.
Gousse, who did not release details about the security measures, downplayed the planned police presence, saying that law enforcement often is at the school even under normal circumstances.
Bar Harbor police officials on Thursday declined to comment on the situation, directing inquiries to school administrators.
Gousse said the decision is a reflection of the current societal conditions in which schools have to be proactive in protecting their students from potential harm when any hint of that possibility arises. He added that, the planned precautions on Friday aside, his expectation is that school officials everywhere would exercise such caution on a daily basis.
“No school is isolated, insulated or immune” to problems that affect communities as a whole, Gousse said.
