Superintendent – Lessons Learned from Florence Carlton Lockdown
Superintendent Bud Scully with the Florence Carlton School District said on Tuesday, the day after a threat caused a modified lockdown, that communication was the key issue for school officials and parents during the incident.
Scully described what happened on Monday morning.
“At about ten o’clock, I was notified that there was a perceived threat to the community and the school,” said Scully. “The school resource officer, the high school and middle school principal and assistant principal were on a conference call with me. We determined that the student wasn’t at school, so it was best to do what we call a modified lockdown which would allow kids to move freely through the building.”
Scully said law enforcement located the student in about an hour and a half and notified the school to announce that all was clear.
“The problem is that parents have a lot of questions,” he said. “During these situations it’s really hard to answer all those questions. Some times the best way to get those answers out is by using social media, or the regular media. In the moment it’s always difficult to get all the information out to every single person.”
Scully said Florence voters recently passed a bond issue that will eventually make the communications process more efficient between the school and the parents.
“That’s one of the reasons why in our bond the parents wanted us to have better connectivity with our school buildings, but at this time we don’t have that connectivity for all of our buildings, and so once we finish our bond project we will have that, where kids will never have to go outside to go to another part of the building,” he said. ‘That project should be starting here this summer, and keeping kids safe is our number one priority to help them get a quality education.”
Scully said the student who made the threat will have to deal first with law enforcement for felony intimidation, and then with school discipline that could result in suspension or even expulsion.