Easton Area School Board Defends Bomb Threat Handling

With parents complaining over how a bomb threat at Easton Area Middle School in Forks Townshp Monday was handled by the school district, school officials tried to explain their reasoning.

At Tuesday night's school board meeting, middle school principal Dr. Charlene Symia told board members the evacaution had gone according to procedure.

"We followed to the letter of the law what we needed to do," she said.

But parents said the district botched the bomb scare, waiting too long to inform them that their children would be late coming home.

Some said that an alert telling parents that buses were 20 minutes late because of the threat wasn't sent until after children were headed home.

After the meeting, Symia declined to comment in detail about parents' complaints, saying only that the school had "made every effort" to contact parents, and would also be sending home a letter discussing the evacuation.

And it wasn't just parents complaining.

Bus driver Helen Jones, who represents the drivers union, complained at the meeting that students were waiting on the sidewalk outside the school.

She wanted bus drivers to be able to evacuate them.

"Had it been a real bomb, every one of our children would’ve been blown up," she said. "Let us pull in, get those kids out of there."

Board member Frank Pintabone replied that it was a police decision that the students were where they were.