A threat was received at Woodside Elementary School in Topsham has prompted an evacuation and the rerouting of buses this morning.
Students were being picked up by parents at Mt. Ararat Middle School.
According to Topsham Police Chief Chris Lewis, Woodside Elementary received a report from a parent that their student had overheard the threat of a bomb at the school, located at 42 Barrows Drive. The school notified police of the threat at 8:32 a.m.
With school buses arriving at school to drop of children, the decision was made not to allow students off the buses.
Instead, any students in the school were put on buses and approximately 400 students and staff were taken to Mt. Ararat Middle School as part of a district emergency plan. Students stayed in the Orion Performing Arts Center where parents picked them up once police and administrators could make arrangements for parking. Wicked Joe’s, an adjacent business, allowed the use of their parking lot for parents picking up children.
Meanwhile the Maine State Police Bomb Squad and a trained bomb sniffing dog searched the building at Woodside Elementary and found to be safe.
Brad Smith, Superintendent of Schools for School Administrative District 75, said he saw a few children upset by the evacuation. However, “most kids seemed quite content to be with their bus driver and kids they ride to and from school with everyday. Once they got to Orion, they organized by class, so teachers were present to interact, reassure and support kids.
“All in all, staff and parents I spoke with felt things went incredibly smooth, and were so appreciative of all the adults who pitched in to make things work out,” he added.
The bomb threat came two days after a mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida and a day after SAD 75 officials and Topsham police investigated two complaints of threats of violence at Mt. Ararat High School, another SAD 75 school located in Topsham.
A joint press release issued by Smith and Lewis Friday afternoon states that authorities followed up yesterday on reports of comments made by students to commit acts of gun violence at the high school today.
One complaint was found to have stemmed from a rumor. The other was found to be “a conversation between two boys about an online video game focused on school violence and other comments that suggest one might do something at our school to scare students,” according to Principal Donna Brunette.
In a notice posted Thursday evening, Brunette stated that authorities didn’t believe there was any viable threat. School opened as usual today with police posted around the school greeting students and staff.
Some students stayed home, “and we understand and support parents in making such decisions whenever concerned about safety,” the release states. “Counselors and social workers were available to talk with any concerned students.”
The bomb threat had implications that reached beyond SAD 75, all the way to Regional School Unit 1 where a lockdown was instituted at Bath Middle School.
According to an update on the RSU 1 website, buses were already on the road this morning when school officials received information that a student had seen information on social media about a possible threat to students and staff at BMS. The school immediately went into a working lockdown while Bath police investigated the situation.
“It was determined that the information received was not a threat to BMS at all,” the notice states. “Rather, it was related to the concerns at Mt. Ararat that were reported yesterday and found to be inaccurate.”
In reaction to the Florida school shooting and the gun threat, bomb threats and other threats of violence investigated in Maine schools this week, Harpwell resident and Mt. Ararat High School graduate Kelly Lynch decided to organize the Topsham-Brunswick Unity March which starts at noon Saturday in Brunswick. Participants will march from the Frank J. Wood Bridge to the gazebo on the Brunswick Mall where they can light candles for the Florida shooting victims.
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