GRAY (NEWS CENTER Maine) — A threat written in a bathroom stall at Gray-New Gloucester Middle School forced 600 students and staff to evacuate late Tuesday morning, according to the school district's superintendent.
MSAD 15 Superintendent Craig King said a student noticed the threat and reported it to the principal, who then informed the school's resource officer, a Cumberland County sheriff's deputy.
One eighth-grade student said the school was placed on lockdown. He said students were taking the MEA tests. His mother, Merredith Hersey picked him up early.
"It just wasn't good timing. It's frustrating that they're still doing it," said Hersey. "I wasn't [necessarily] scared that something was going to happen to them, I was more scared of the emotional reactions."
Her son was frustrated, too.
"They make it harder on everyone when they do that," he said.
Dr. King said the number of threats and shootings across the country recently forces them to involve law enforcement.
"People are a little more amped up than they have been in the past," said King. "But now the gravity of this and the anxiety and the disruption it causes -- it has to be treated much more seriously than that."
King said students and staff were taken to the high school gym. Some parents picked up their children from there. Those that were not dismissed were allowed to return to school at about 12:30 p.m., when the school was declared safe.
King said every district in the state has an emergency plan binder which details how staff should handle different situations.
He credits the Cumberland County Sheriff's Deputy embedded in the school as the School Resource Officer with building a rapport with students, and making them more comfortable identifying situations where they feel uncomfortable, such as threats.
He said parents can also play a role in helping their children feel safe.
"Just talking about it and trying to make some sense of it can reduce some level of anxiety," said King.
The middle school received a similar threat on March 7.
King said police are treating both threats as criminal investigations.
Local law enforcement, superintendents, and other staff are meeting at Saint Joseph's college in the first week of April to talk about school safety in the wake of the events nationally.