In the wake of an alleged threat to its elementary schools and the unrelated lockdown at Sam Houston Elementary on Oct. 24, the Ector County Independent School District (ECISD) announced that has assessed both matters, as well as communicated with concerned parents. Per ECISD, the former incident caused the district to place all elementary campuses into a Secure – all students and staff are inside and visitors are restricted – at about 9:30 a.m. that day without any sort of clarification.
“We have apologized to our principals for placing them in that position,” officials said in a Facebook post on ECISD’s page.
According to the post, the Secure was lifted after a person of interest was located and interviewed.
According to the post, the Secure was lifted after a person of interest was located and interviewed. “At that time law enforcement determined the person named in the original message to the FBI was not the person responsible for making the call, and felt the threat was not credible and the situation was safe to release the Secure,” the district said.
ECISD said it saw the error in failing to notify its elementary school parents, which purportedly caused confusion and worry.
ECISD said it saw the error in failing to notify its elementary school parents, which purportedly caused confusion and worry. “We will make changes to the way we handle and report information related to Secure situations, which we typically considered precautionary responses, not emergencies,” it said in the post. “We understand Tuesday’s circumstances were very different from most that we face, and we did not respond well enough.”
The release said that ECISD has worked with local law enforcement agencies to develop similar procedures of which the lockdown at Sam Houston was an example.
The district thanked authorities and the general public for their support, per the release.