Students were evacuated from Harborview Elementary School Friday after the school received a bomb threat via phone call.
The threat came in at just before noon, according to an update sent on the Juneau School District app. Juneau Police Department spokesperson Lt. Krag Campbell said Friday afternoon that the FBI assisted in the investigation and confirmed that the phone call was sent from a number connected to threats made to different schools across the state in recent months.
The update said students were briefly evacuated to the playground while police cleared the school. Classes were back to normal as of 1 p.m. A brief stay-put order was also put in place at the Juneau-Douglas Yadaa.at Kalé High School, but has since ended.
District Superintendent Frank Hauser said in an interview Friday that the safety of students is the district’s top priority.
“I just want to really appreciate the principal and the staff for acting so quickly and the Juneau Police Department for responding so quickly,” he said. “I’m saddened to think that there are individuals on the internet and out there that are propagating these messages and causing such disruptions in our schools.”
Campbell said the investigation is ongoing.
“We take all these threats seriously and try to respond as soon as possible to determine if there is anything unsafe, or there’s any credibility to the threats,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to keep our residents and community members and our children safe.”
Mass threats to schools have been on the rise across the country. In September, several schools across the state received threats via email. A Peruvian man was later arrested for sending more than 150 bomb threats to U.S. schools, including in Alaska.
This story has been updated with additional information from the Juneau Police Department.
