Tech Students Flee After Second Unintended Intruder Alarm

PLEASANT LAKE – Three weeks after an active shooter scare sent Cape Tech students fleeing the building, a similar event occurred Friday, this time linked to a technical mistake. There was no actual threat to students in either case.

Superintendent of Schools Robert Sanborn said the problem was linked to the system that shows armed intruder alerts on all of the school’s classroom displays. The default message reads, “This is not a drill,” but a special slide was being prepared for use during drills that makes it clear that there is no actual emergency. It was this slide that was inadvertently displayed throughout the school Friday, Sanborn said.

“This was not a scheduled drill,” he said. But school officials opted to treat it as such “because some people had already evacuated the building,” he said. Per protocols, evacuees get well away from the school building; at the time of the alarm, temperatures were around freezing and the wind chill temperature was between 22 and 25 degrees. Police officers were dispatched to tell students it was safe to return.

The disruption lasted about 25 minutes, Sanborn said.

Some students and staff members were rattled by the unexpected alarm, and initially faulted the school for holding a drill on the heels of last month’s incident, and during cold weather. As soon as evacuees were back inside, administrators made a school-wide announcement explaining that the drill had been held inadvertently.

On Dec. 15, a false alarm about an armed intruder sent students and staff members fleeing. Students and staff members reported a frightening, chaotic scene as they scrambled for exits and raced away from the building. School officials allowed students to call their families for reassurance, made counselors available immediately and dismissed classes early. Several students described the incident as the most frightening experience of their lives.

While the video slide that was inadvertently displayed Friday made it clear that it was a drill, not an actual threat, it’s not surprising that some people were shaken up, Sanborn said.

“I think it brought back a little of that feeling for a select few,” he said.

The Dec. 15 incident happened after a student inadvertently activated the alarm system, the superintendent said. A school investigation determined that no punishment was warranted.

“It was not a disciplinary issue. It was just a mistake,” he said. But the various systems needed to broadcast the alarm also did not function as expected that day, and the vendors responsible for those systems have been at the school several times to make fixes, he said. Progress is being made, he added.