CENTERBURG — Centerburg Local Schools were quick to jump into lock-down, or other safety practices, when the district was informed Wednesday that the armed suspect in the First-Knox National Bank robbery was on the loose.
As a precautionary measure, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office called the elementary school to let school officials know what was going on and to inform them of the suspect’s description. The schools then went into lock-down mode.
Although Centerburg schools practice lock downs as part of routine safety drills, the timing of Wednesday’s incident was unique, according to Superintendent Dorothy Holden.
“We do practice lock downs in coordination with the fire department and sheriff’s department,” she said, “but this happened right around dismissal time.”
Holden applauded the quick thinking by the administrative team and transportation coordinator, as well as the communication between buildings and bus drivers.
“I would pat my staff on the back, from the bus drivers to the principals to the custodians to the teachers,” Holden said. “The teachers and everyone all stayed calm and tried to keep a low profile without alarming any one too much because we only had sketchy information. Vicky Nelson, transportation coordinator, said she was extremely proud of her drivers. They all understood the situation and knew what to do.”
When the call came into the elementary school, assistant principal Ann Gardner contacted Nelson, who talked with the bus drivers over the radio. High school principal John Morgan said that was done in such a way as to not alarm any of the pupils already on the buses. He said, “The radios were hopping [Wednesday].”
“The elementary dismisses about a quarter after three,” Morgan continued, “so they had every staff member out in the lots, just looking around and keeping an eye out. We did hold the elementary walkers in the building until we got the word it was all right to dismiss them.”
At the high school, many students were already on the buses when the alert was issued, although others were still in or near the school building. Morgan said, “We had a middle school football team out on a field. Luckily the cross country team had the night off, otherwise they would have been running right up into town. There was a drama club going on, cheerleading practice, basketball conditioning, and a staff meeting. Basically we got everybody inside and locked the doors. We just kind of hunkered down until about 3:30 when the sheriff’s department called and said it would be OK for us to unlock the doors and go about our business.”
Morgan said the students reacted calmly to the situation and complied with directions from the staff. Some middle school students who were cleaning out their lockers were asked to check in at the office before they left, and they did, without questioning why. Morgan said there were also several high school students who were “hanging around” outside the building.
“They asked what was going on,” he said, “but they took it in stride. They came in, sat down in the lobby and were visiting and just hanging out. ... Nobody got really worked up about it.”
