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Students, staff safe after Colchester elementary school evacuated

the afternoon today, we were notified by school officials that they had *** potential hazard within their school. Over amounts of *** school arriving officers to look kind of confirmed with school officials that device brought in by *** student certainly had the potential of being real. It was okay if you think of *** grenade that you would see in the movies, it would be very similar to that. It was clearly had been ah it certainly wasn’t knew they would have shown signs of of where um indication that the delays have been outside for some time, which actually matched the information the student gave us. That uh that the student had founded, founded the bodies outside. But until we were able to determine that ah the device was not *** danger. The school’s evacuated. Students were sent over to the culture of the middle school which is adjacent to Mouth Bass school, both for safety and because the weather wasn’t conducive to keeping them outside. Uh So uh we brought in from out of State police to assist us in this from the state police bomb squad came in. We had actually sent them some photographs of it and they had given us an initial assessment that it may be *** training device. But until they arrived and were able to do *** closer examination and that determination was made that it was *** training device. Um and that was safe and the students, the students were very cooperative. They were calm. They evacuated swiftly. Our faculty and staff at Mallets Bay School were very assistive to our students. Once in the gym, we were able to identify that many of our students had not yet eaten lunch? And so *** huge shout out to our food service folks who were able to make sure that every mallets based school student who needed food had the opportunity to have some food during their time in the middle school gym. I also just want to acknowledge that the middle school students were really great, allowed our students to have the gym and the middle school administration, they welcomed malin space school with open arms so that they had *** safe place to be during that time to go off. And they did, you know, we’ve, we’ve we’ve worked together for for quite *** while and these kind of evacuation plans have been in place for some time. And uh, you know, today they were just put *** little more into practice than usual. Can you hear *** little more about how the student acquired this device? You had mentioned that that that’s that’s the information from the student and like I said, it was kind of born out by the condition of the device. Um He uh students said that uh, that he found it outside, um, and brought it in for um, kind of uh, see what I have, you know, there’s no certainly no intent, Any intent to scare anyone or two. Um, you know, to have someone thinking it was *** real device. He just brought in to show his friends that he thought it was neat. That’s correct, yes, yes. No, he brought it, he close to his, his home, Does it look like *** guard device? Uh He does not live near the guard facilities and this has got some age on it. Um So we’re still kind of looking to see uh those kind of questions, but uh it still doesn’t look like something that left the guard recently. So you say you call it *** device, but it’s *** dummy grenade, I’m sorry, It was described by by the Vermont State Police bomb squad as an inert training device, correct? It does that mean it’s *** grenade? *** grenade is *** certain type of explosive device. It is um designed to in warfare. Um So it is, it is looks like *** grenade because as I said, it’s *** training device, so those who need to use these devices trained with something like that, so it’s the right correct, correct when, when, when our officers first to look at it, um you know, they certainly were not able to make that determination. So we wanted to make sure everything was done as safely as possible. How many students were evacuated from the school, the entire population that was at Mallet space school during the time. Um and so I don’t have the exact count in this moment, but it was the entire school population, I think slightly over 500. These situations are very Bigly traumatic for kids. Obviously you have drills and things like that, but it’s *** school like talking about this situation. What services are you providing? Yeah, great question as we speak, that’s exactly what’s happening. And so when students reentered mallets bay school, we dismissed them from the middle school, two classes at *** time. So as they were walking from one school to the next, they had the opportunity to interact with the building principal, myself and two police officers welcoming, welcoming them and letting them know that it was safe to enter the building. Lots of smiles and lots of high fives took place at that moment in time. Once all of the classrooms were back in malin space school principal Burke didn’t announcement for the entire school to hear, thanking them for their cooperation during the drill and again, reassuring them that the building is safe and after that each of the building administrators, including some central office administrators, we then started to walk the building and go into each classroom, take time with them in the faculty in that room to answer any questions that the students might have and so they’re in the process of doing that right now. Well, debates who and how it was discovered by *** classroom teacher and we know that obviously as you mentioned, the intent was not malicious in any way, shape or form that being said, is there, you know, any, any situation with the student where police have to be involved or any repercussions or at this point, it’s just, I was, you know, we, we have had discussions with the student and his parents. Um, are we want to make sure there aren’t any other devices that that may crop up. Um, so officers are, went to the residents and met with the parents and, and uh, you know, we want to make sure there wasn’t any, any bad intent and there’s certainly from our, from both the school’s interviews and our interviews, that, that is not the case. So can you just go through the time out of events? The teachers sell the students advice. What happened? We just talked about finding it. Yes. Um, shortly before 12 30 teacher identified the device, um, communicated with the building level administrators who immediately contacted colchester pd, I will note that the Vermont bomb squad, let us know that we followed all of the right steps that those were exactly the procedures that needed to happen. Really appreciative of that teacher’s efforts and the administrators efforts that they did those immediately after they found the device. So really pleased that they were able to follow our procedures and protocols and from there are our community partners arrived and helped us through the next step of the process. So did he just set it down right there and it was never moved. So it was from, from when the teacher found it until uh, from, I say police arrived, it would stay in that same location. We were told like parents were told not to like rush to the school not to arrive at the school. Um, what’s dismissal looking like today is different than normal. Our dismissal procedures won’t change. They will be the same. But I do have to say our parents and families really followed what we asked them to do. We did have some families stopped by the school, but the vast majority of families uh, stayed home and allowed us to work through our process and our procedures. We also made sure that we communicated as often as we could with families giving them an update so they knew what was happening at our schools. I think that’s really helpful when we are able to do that. Of course, when you’re in an emergency situation. Our first priority is to make sure that everyone is safe and sometimes that causes *** delay in communication. But we did let our families know after we’ve sent the first message that we would communicate again within 30 minutes. And I think that timeline really helped our families to be comfortable knowing that we would let them know what we, what we needed. And how often do you do evacuation drills for situations like this? Yeah, we do regular fire drills and then we also practice are clear the halls or evacuation drills in the time of Covid. Those drills looked *** little bit different because we were really careful about putting students in close proximity to others. But what we did do during Covid was we would practice those drills kind of explaining to students what they needed to do so that they were aware practicing our procedures and making sure our entire school community is aware of what those procedures are is essential. So that when we make that announcement that we need to evacuate or clear the halls or that we’re having, you know, *** fire drill. Students and adults, they don’t have to have that processing time to take those steps. They just know what we need to do. And it it really quickens our response and you can see that today. Yeah, monthly there’s at least 11 drill. Um and so we try to make sure in the beginning of the school year in september that we do both *** fire drill and *** clear the halls drill. And then as we move through the remainder of the school year we try to make sure that there is at least one each month. It is the child returning to school tomorrow. Yeah. At this point I’m not able to answer that question because of because of but we are working with the student and following our procedures based on the student handbook

Students, staff safe after Colchester elementary school evacuated

Students and staff were evacuated from a Colchester elementary school Wednesday after a student found a training hand grenade in the woods and brought it inside a classroom, according to police. It was found shortly after noon by a teacher, who alerted administrators and prompted an evacuation procedure. Students were moved to the adjacent Colchester Middle School while authorities investigated at the scene. The training grenade was not capable of exploding, police said, but appeared realistic. “If you think of a grenade that you would see in the movies it looked very similar to that,” said Colchester Police Chief Douglas Allen. “But until we were able to determine that the device was not a danger, the school was evacuated.”Parents received multiple messages from district officials during the incident noting there was no active threat at the campus despite the large police presence, urging families not to try and pickup their child. Members of the Vermont State Police Bomb Squad were able to retrieve the device once students had been evacuated from the school. Local police visited the child’s home to speak with parents and confirm there was no threat, also discovering the training grenade was not found nearby, not on school property. “There is certainly no intent to scare anyone or to have anyone think it was a real device,” Allen said. “He just brought it in to show his friends that he thought it was neat.”Students removed from the school were reported as being in “good spirits” during the incident. Administrators said all students were repeatedly assured they were safe and given an opportunity to ask questions about the situation. School officials said they plan to release students back into the elementary school once the scene is cleared by authorities.

COLCHESTER, Vt. —

Students and staff were evacuated from a Colchester elementary school Wednesday after a student found a training hand grenade in the woods and brought it inside a classroom, according to police.

It was found shortly after noon by a teacher, who alerted administrators and prompted an evacuation procedure. Students were moved to the adjacent Colchester Middle School while authorities investigated at the scene.

The training grenade was not capable of exploding, police said, but appeared realistic.

“If you think of a grenade that you would see in the movies it looked very similar to that,” said Colchester Police Chief Douglas Allen. “But until we were able to determine that the device was not a danger, the school was evacuated.”

Parents received multiple messages from district officials during the incident noting there was no active threat at the campus despite the large police presence, urging families not to try and pickup their child.

Members of the Vermont State Police Bomb Squad were able to retrieve the device once students had been evacuated from the school. Local police visited the child’s home to speak with parents and confirm there was no threat, also discovering the training grenade was not found nearby, not on school property.

“There is certainly no intent to scare anyone or to have anyone think it was a real device,” Allen said. “He just brought it in to show his friends that he thought it was neat.”

Students removed from the school were reported as being in “good spirits” during the incident. Administrators said all students were repeatedly assured they were safe and given an opportunity to ask questions about the situation.

School officials said they plan to release students back into the elementary school once the scene is cleared by authorities.