Four Redmond schools were placed in Secure after a police received a call about a possible threat Monday.
An email sent out by the Redmond School District at 10:42 a.m. said Redmond High School went into Secure at about 9:00 a.m. Secure means all exterior doors are locked and students are not allowed to leave the building, but classes continue as normal.
The Secure measure was put in place after someone described as a concerned parent called about a possible threat.
Terrebonne Elementary, Tom McCall Elementary, and Elton Gregory Middle School also went into Secure as a precaution, the school district said.
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Redmond Police located and detained a suspect, the school district said. School district spokesperson Holly Brown said the person was not on campus.
Secure was lifted at at 10:40 a.m. after police determined there was not a threat, according to the district.
“We knew right away, very early on, that there was no direct threat to the students, but we still want to be transparent with our community, with the parents, and let them know why we’re making the decisions we’re making,” said Redmond Schools spokesperson Holly Brown. “Hopefully, they can understand the processes so when their student comes home from school and says this happened today, we want the parents to already know, ‘OK, this is what happened and this is why they did it, and everything followed a protocol.”
The Redmond School District later out a statement explaining why Secure was the chosen response to the situation.
“Going into Secure status allows our schools to create an environment that is safe from potential outside threats while students’ learning continues. We need to be overly cautious with student safety, said RSD superintendent, Dr. Charan Cline in a statement.
Secure is one level of a five level Standard Response Protocol the Redmond School District says it follows. Here are the details of each level from the SRP website:
- Hold is followed by the Directive: “In Your Room or Area” and is the protocol used when hallways need to kept clear of occupants.
- Secure is followed by the Directive: “Get Inside. Lock Outside Doors” and is the protocol used to safeguard people within the building.
- Lockdown is followed by “Locks, Lights, Out of Sight” and is the protocol used to secure individual rooms and keep occupants quiet and in place.
- Evacuate and may be followed by a location, and is used to move people from one location to a different location in or out of the building.
- Shelter State the Hazard and Safety Strategy for group and self protection
No other details were released about the nature of the threat or who the suspect was.
