Middle school threat set parents and community on edge

Parents are upset they were not quickly notified of a possible school threat at a local middle school in Imperial Wednesday night.

Students at Frank Wright Middle School were on campus for band practice that night.

Shannon Walters, a concerned parent, said, “They began searching the bags that children had brought with them. The instruments, the instrument cases, the locker rooms, the bathrooms.”

Walters describes the chaotic scene when she and her husband picked up their kids.

“When I got here, the parking lot was full of parents. Doors were blocked by chaperones, there was extra security, law enforcement on campus which was very alarming.”

Walters wished the school and police had been more open about what was going on.

“We never received a single message from Imperial Unified letting us know that, hey, the students at band rehearsal are okay,” Walters added. “We just arrived to find chaos on the parking lot.”

School officials said they sent information out once they had the right message for the community.

Frank Right Middle School Principal Summer Heraz said, “As soon as I was notified, I came to the school. I immediately started to use all of our systems we have available to us to get emails and texts out. We also used Facebook messaging. We did find there were a few bugs in some of our systems that we can work on to be able to get it out even more quickly.”

Parents said it wasn’t until the next day they received a message from the school.

“At six o’clock this morning, we received several text messages from the district saying what was going on. In my opinion, that’s unacceptable. That’s too late. Even if it was eight o’clock at night, the district needs to be more proactive on what’s going on with our children,” said Matt Walters, Shannon’s husband.

City officials said the threat was not credible. They didn’t say who made the threat even though a school statement said a subject was identified.

Walters added, “It’s very scary. The hair stands up on your neck going, what just happened that I’m not aware of – something happened.”