{"id":23574,"date":"2014-10-18T10:47:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T14:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23574"},"modified":"2014-10-18T10:47:39","modified_gmt":"2014-10-18T14:47:39","slug":"greenwood-evacuated-after-bomb-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23574","title":{"rendered":"Kennett school evacuated after bomb threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

600 students and faculty displaced while authorities searched building<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Greenwoodthreat\"<\/a>

Greenwood Elementary School students return to the building Friday, as State Police and other law enforcement officials look on, after a bomb threat led to the evacuation of the building, Friday.<\/p><\/div>\n

KENNETT \u2014 Students were evacuated from Greenwood Elementary School Friday morning after a \u201cvery specific\u201d note claiming a bomb or explosive material was in the building was found in the faculty bathroom.<\/p>\n

No explosive device was found and the building was cleared for reentry before 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s event was the most recent in a series of bomb threats made against district buildings in the past year, the others at Kennett Middle School in New Garden. Unlike those threats, which appear to have been limited to student bathrooms, this threat was more detailed, law enforcement sources told The Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“We consider bomb threats to be very serious,\u201d said Kennett Township Police Chief Albert J. McCarthy, said in a statement issued Friday night. \u201cThe safety of our children and our community are our top priority.\u00a0Thankfully, no explosive devices were located during the search of the Greenwood Elementary\u00a0School.\u201d<\/p>\n

Superintendent of Schools Barry Tomasetti did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.<\/p>\n

The threat led to an immediate evacuation of the school at about 10:38 a.m. with all first through fifth grade students \u2014 more than 600 \u2014 taken from the school, along with all staff. Lunches, water and snacks were brought to the site, as faculty worked to keep the students engaged \u2014 some calling it an \u201cextended recess\u201d or \u201cthe world\u2019s longest fire drill\u201d so as not to worry the students.<\/p>\n

As word began to spread in the community, concerned parents attempted to go to the school, but roadways were closed off by State Police and a safe zone was created as law enforcement officials swept the building for possible threats.<\/p>\n

Greenwood Road was closed between Hillendale and U.S.-1 for about three hours on Friday, and on either end, parents gathered seeking information about their children. There was some frustration on the part of parents, unsure what they should do \u2014 which in this case, was nothing, as going to scene to get their children wasn\u2019t possible.<\/p>\n

While Kennett Township sent a message via email to township residents, some of those parents expressed frustration with the school district\u2019s communication. Some parents contacted The Times<\/em>, seeking information as the event unfolded, saying they were unclear as to whether they needed to pick up their children, and what was happening. Similar sentiments were expressed by parents who attempted to go to the school and were stopped at the Fire Police barricades.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Chester County Sheriff\u2019s Department\u00a0used bomb trained dogs to perform a sweep of the school grounds, which did not reveal any suspicious devices or materials. The building was cleared and students and staff were allowed to reenter.<\/p>\n

In addition to township police, the Sheriff\u2019s Department and State Police, Kennett Square Borough Police, Longwood Fire Department, Longwood\u00a0EMS, and Kennett\u00a0Square EMS all responded to the scene and provided support. Fire police from Avondale also helped control traffic and maintain the safe zone.<\/p>\n

McCarthy\u00a0said in his statement, that \u201cfor precautionary reasons\u201d there will be extra police\u00a0patrols of the school during the investigation of the incident continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

600 students and faculty displaced while authorities searched building By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times KENNETT \u2014 Students were evacuated from Greenwood Elementary School Friday morning after a \u201cvery specific\u201d note claiming a bomb or explosive material was in the building was found in the faculty bathroom. No explosive device was found and the building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,317],"tags":[6261,6260,2544,1035,563],"class_list":["post-23574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-region","tag-bomb-threat","tag-greenwood-elementary","tag-kennett-consolidated-school-district","tag-kennett-township","tag-state-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23575,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23574\/revisions\/23575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}