At approximately 11:30 am, our district, along with several others in Ohio, received a bomb threat on Friday. We immediately contacted authorities and utilized our internal alert system to activate our emergency response procedures. At just after noon, once all students and staff were safe, we sent our first alert to parents via our Honeywell system.
I am very thankful that we were prepared and ready for emergencies of this type. We have practiced for this type of event with the hope we would never have to use such measures. More importantly, I am thankful that no one was injured.
I am so very proud of the Principals, staff and students for following procedures, staying calm, and working as a team….
It is also vital to thank our local first responders who place their lives at risk on a daily basis to insure we stay safe. They are to be commended for helping direct traffic and answer questions as concerned parents entered the Gateway Church parking lot, our reunification site.
Lastly, thanks to the parents for remaining calm, following directions and patience during this situation. We understand it was quite the traffic jam to retrieve your children, but necessary to insure children were released to authorized individuals.
For children who seem upset about returning to school or having lingering fear about Friday’s events, please alert your teacher who can make sure your child is able to talk with one of our guidance counselors. We are able and ready to call in additional help if necessary.
Finally, we are aware that some families felt out of touch with the events. I would urge you to sign up for Honeywell alerts – if you aren’t signed up, please do so here to receive text, call and/or email alerts. You can choose your method of communication. This is the quickest and best way for us to push out information to a large number of families.
https://instantalert.honeywell.com/
As a follow-up, we will have internal meetings today as a review of Friday’s actions. We will use this event to evaluate our plan. We will then sit down with the Sheriff’s staff to further study our plan with a larger lens. If changes occur they will be implemented. Please understand that not all parts of our plan are shared with the public for security reasons.
Again, thank you to everyone for working together for the safety of our children.
– Jim Kanable, Superintendent Liberty-Benton Schools
