Monday bomb threat shuts down Noble High

Noble High School (Courtesy photo)

NORTH BERWICK, Maine - A bomb threat found scribbled in pencil on a restroom wall at Noble High sent students home a little before the scheduled end of the school day on Monday, canceling all afternoon sports and evening adult education classes.

The "nonspecific threat" forced emergency protocols to be implemented, which included not allowing students to return to the school to gather backpacks left after an initial evacuation. It also led to transport of all students to Noble Middle School for pickup by parents.

North Berwick Police Chief Stephen Peasley said a student found the note threatening to blow the school up at 8 a.m. on a second floor bathroom wall around 1:45 p.m., leading to the evacuation.

Peasley said officers combed the school and were assisted by two bomb-sniffing dogs from Maine State Police.

No bomb was found.

Peasley said the note was written very faintly in pencil on a cement wall in a second-floor bathroom wall and that it may have been there for some time. He said it seemed to have been made by a single pencil line and it would've been very possible for students to have used the bathroom and never noticed it.

He wouldn't say whether it was a boys or girls bathroom as he said that was part of the investigation. He said the school's resource officer would be continuing an investigation today.

"Hopefully we can come up with some suspects today," he said this morning around 8 a.m.

Peasley said police cleared the scene on Monday around 5:30 p.m.

Evidently, there was some confusion with parents over where to pick up their children in such an emergency, alluded to in a superintendent's message on the district's website.

"Upon reflection, one part of the response that needs to be more transparent is our communication with families," a message from SAD 60 Supt. Steven Connolly said. "A Connect Ed call, for example, could have informed families of the change in pickup location: Noble Middle School. As it was, many families got this message through their children via cell phones."