EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. — Students were sent home early yesterday in Ellicott School District 22.
According to a Facebook post made by the Ellicott Superintendent, the early release was not related to hoax threats, but took place because the high school principal was alerted that a gun was missing from a vehicle on school grounds.
Superintendent Chris Smith says that the entire district was placed on lockdown out of an abundance of caution.
During the lockdown, the El Paso Sheriff's Office responded and helped search the grounds for the missing weapon, including searching students' backpacks.
According to the Facebook post, the district was placed on lockdown for the following factors:
- to ensure that there wasn't a weapon on school grounds
- to ensure that students weren't going to be moved into a situation or location that would increase the security risk
- to ensure that 100% of students were accounted for
The district says that they prioritized evacuating secondary students first for the following reasons:
- the search of the secondary buildings had been completed
- older siblings would be home when the elementary students were released
- the security concern was specific to the high school and middle school
The original plan had been to evacuate students to an off-campus site where they could be reunited with their parents; however, that plan was disrupted after the original plan was leaked to media outlets and social media.
The district then shifted its plans again out of an abundance of caution.
According to Superintendent Smith, the district acknowledges that the change in plans and limited communication caused issues and concerns amongst the students' families. The district was not prepared to handle all of the parents who showed up at the schools while students were already in route home.
As far as the parent pick up and loading of buses at the elementary school, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office had taken control of the building and was directing actions to agitated parents.
Superintendent Smith says that the lack of communication with parents and guardians caused key staff to be taken away from their assigned responsibilities.
According to the district, this is an ongoing situation that will continue to be investigated.
In situations similar to this, students can't be released to siblings, relatives or friends/neighbors who are not on the emergency contact list. The district says they will work with parents to ensure that all emergency contact info is up to date.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office says that this was a precautionary move based on an unknown threat.
The Sheriff's Office has confirmed that the threats to the three Ellicott Schools are not credible, but they are still investigating.
News5 has made several attempts to the school district for information, but we have yet to receive a response.
School is scheduled to be back in session on Monday as Ellicott schools are on a 4-day a week schedule.
News5's Piper Vaughn was there when parents were picking up their kids and spoke with some parents who have mixed emotions about what happened today.
Some parents got an alert, and some didn’t.
Lommie Hoffman, a parent, shares her struggles about the lack of communication from the school’s alert system. She tells News5 she has received those alerts in the past, but not Thursday morning.
“I was very anxious not knowing any actual information, like if it was a hoax or if something was actually going on. It was very scary,” she said.
The sheriff’s office said the threats to the three Ellicott schools are not credible, but that they are investigating. Sergeant Kurt Smith says all students and staff are safe.
“Based on some situations we’re currently investigating, that does not have to do with the safety of a student, teacher, parent, or anybody involved,” he said.
EDITORS NOTE: News5 initially reported that Ellicott School District 22 received multiple school shooting threats over the last two weeks. However, Ellicott School District 22 did not receive those threats. Those shooting threats were made to other schools in the county, according to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. The Sheriff's Office says two students have been charged from separate schools for spreading those threats to schools locally and nationwide.
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