Wake County school district leaders evaluate response to Heritage High School bomb threat

Just a few weeks after a bomb threat evacuation kept more than 1,800 Wake County students in the sweltering heat, district leaders evaluated its response to the threat in a school board meeting.

The evacuation happened on Aug. 29, the third day of school at Heritage High School.

School officials evacuated students due a bomb threat, that was later deemed not credible for law enforcement.

But students spent two to three hours outside before buses could take students home. Two students were transported to the hospital with heat-related illness. Emergency personnel treated several other students for less severe heat symptoms on site.

On Tuesday, school board members learned that a second threat contributed to some logistical challenges with evacuation and that school system officials are working on adding evacuation protocols related to inclement weather.

Officials didn’t go into details about either the threat or what the protocols would be, saying they would divulge more information during a closed session that took place immediate after the board’s work session. They cited confidential security concerns as their reason to keep those topics under wraps.

Board members asked several questions that officials said would be better answered during closed session.

“We will have something in place for inclement weather and things of that nature,” Clinton Robinson, chief of staff and strategic planning, told the board. “We can explain to you what that protocol is going to look like.”

That is coming at the direction of Superintendent Robert P. Taylor.

Leaving students out in the heat for two or more hours was a point of frustration for many students and parents, who emailed school board members in frustration about it.

“It can happen again with different extremes. I want to know that they actually have a plan and that they're not going to just be holding the kids there,” parent Erica Paul said.

Paul's daughter is senior at the school. She and her classmates were packed into the school stadium last month.

After hours outside on the football field, a different danger became clear. The temperature was 95 degrees and the heat index in the triple digits.

“When you send your kid to school, you expect some level of safety,” Paul said, holding back tears. “I feel like the safety of my child and everyone else that was in that stadium was put at risk, and I really expect better.”

Timeline of response on Aug. 29

A bomb threat was called into the school at 10:17 a.m., according to a timeline released by the school system Tuesday.

Parents were first notified at 10:26 a.m., although district spokeswoman Lisa Luten said a technical glitch left some families out of initial communications.

The school was evacuated by 10:31 a.m., and students went to the football field.

Police officers arrived at 10:41 a.m. in response to a second threat.

The school requested more help for students who were suffering from heat illness at 11:11 a.m.

Buses began arriving to take some students at 12:13 p.m.

The response effort ends at 1:47 p.m.

Board Member Cheryl Caulfield, whose sons attend Heritage High School, said she believed the evacuation itself went “very well and very quick.”

But she was among the parents who didn’t get many messages about it.

“I didn’t receive any communication until minutes before the dismissal was scheduled,” she said.

Luten said the system was looking into what happened to ensure it doesn’t happen again. She said parents should receive multiple communications in an event like this but are also encouraged to go the school’s website, which will have the most information.

The first communication will have little information, because it needs to get out quickly and translated into multiple languages, Luten said. More information comes in later messages.

That’s something Board Chairman Chris Heagarty said he’d like to see fine-tuned somehow. He acknowledged the need to get information out quickly but said many people will assume the worst when they are notified of a code red lockdown, even though there’s usually no threat.

Luten said that’s a challenge because news of a lockdown spreads so quickly on social media nowadays, necessitating the need for the initial message that doesn’t have much information in it. At the same time, the school system has seen a 66% increase in crisis communication efforts because of a rise in threats.

Heagarty noted that’s because of copycat threats following actual acts of violence, including mass shootings, elsewhere.

Sunburn, not enough water

Several board members asked about the protocol for evacuating students in extreme weather — something the district is currently drafting.

Paul said her daughter and other students were forced to stay and described the conditions as “torture.” Paul said staff did eventually hand out water, but there wasn’t enough to go around, and she believes it came too late. Multiple students were hospitalized for heat-related issues. Her daughter came home with sunburn.

She had “red skin, super hot to the touch,” Paul said. “She didn't feel well for days as a result. Afterward, it took several days for her to feel 100% again.”

Paul said this is not the first time the school has experienced a bomb threat. However, in the past, she said students were told to abandon their belongings at the school during the evacuation and then return to retrieve them later. She also said the dismissal came much sooner.

“You're completely helpless as parent, nothing you can do. It's ridiculous,” she said.

This time, Paul said she would have expected a more clear, cohesive plan to ensure the safety of the students after leaving the building. She mentioned other options that school and district leaders could have considered.

“There's, about a half a mile away via the greenway, a middle school. They could have taken everybody to [the middle school], and it would have been a whole lot better than sitting out in the exposed sun for two and a half hours,” Paul said. “They also can't put them all in one location. That's going to be a giant target.”