By Bailey Grubish, Waseca County News

 

Waseca Junior and Senior High School students were released just after noon Monday due to a written bomb threat that was left in a bathroom stall in the building.

The school resource officer was notified of the note and action was taken immediately to evacuate the building.

“In today’s world we have to take everything seriously,” Waseca School District Superintendent Tom Lee said of the threat.

Students who drove to school were able to go home and the other students were bused to the Central Intermediate auditorium to wait for family to pick them up or to ride the bus at the end of the day.

The rest of the district continued a normal school day schedule.

At the school board meeting, just hours after the school was evacuated, Lee gave an update on the investigation, stating no bomb was found at the school.

The staff re-entered the building in the afternoon Monday to assist Waseca Police Department and the Rochester Police Department with the explosive ordnance detection dog in the search of the threat, finding nothing.

“The Rochester PD came and it was very helpful in the search and gives us confidence to re-enter the building,” Lee said. “Now our concern is copy cats and our message is to discourage copy cats.”

The investigation is ongoing to find who wrote the note, but school was set to continue Tuesday as normal with extra security at the building for the rest of the week.

Lee continued to share they are optimistic to find the person and, if and when the person responsible for the threat is identified, the school plans to press charges and apply the law to the fullest extent. It is a federal offense.

 

See what happened over the weekend in the PM report here.