The Monroe County Community School Corporation placed all schools on lockdown this afternoon after it was made aware of a “non-specific threat” to student safety.
According to an email sent to parents, MCCSC started safety protocols and placed all MCCSC schools on lockdown at around 1:20 p.m. Students remained in the locked classrooms as instruction continued.
In a video posted later that evening, MCCSC Superintendent Markay Winston said the Bloomington Police Department received a call from someone claiming to be in a school’s bathroom with an assault rifle and that they were going to “shoot up a school.”
“We did a sweep of every one of our schools,” Winston said. “That took a little bit of time. We wanted to make sure that no one was in any of the restrooms in any of our schools. And we also wanted to sweep and look at every space within every one of our buildings. We took the time that was necessary to be able to confirm that there was no threat.”
Schools were subsequently confirmed to be secure. Winston said they notified parents of secondary schools at around 2:33 p.m., and those of elementary at around 3 p.m.
Afterwards, parents expressed concerns online about the lack of communication from the corporation and lack of knowledge of the situation while it was happening.
“While we did attempt to get our messages out as quickly as possible, we did experience a little bit of a snafu with our messaging system and the server wasn't working as effectively as it needed to work,” Winston said. “So, some of our messages were delayed.”
This story has been updated.
