SHS Holds Lockdown Drill

A lockdown drill at Sidney High School last week was realistic enough to cause some concern as word spread through texts and social media, but there was no threat to those in the school and SHS Principal Chris Arent deemed the drill a success.

Arent posted a message on the school's Facebook account Friday afternoon reviewing the morning's happenings, which in addition to the lockdown drill, included a drug dog search of the school and parking lot.

In the message, Arent complimented SHS students and staff for how they handled the situation. He said the drill had been planned for several weeks.

Arent told the Sun-Telegraph Monday he was the only person within the high school who knew the exercise was a drill. He said the intent was for a realistic emergency practice while at the same time keeping students safe during the drug dog search. The search, he said, did not yield any illicit materials.

The lockdown practice followed the school's procedure of making a specific emergency-related announcement over the school-wide intercom. Students then spent 20 minutes in their planned emergency lockdown mode, followed by 20 minutes in "hold," where they remain in class behind locked doors but hold class as normal.

As the realistic drill commenced, word got out that there was an active shooter in the school, and also that there were guns found on campus. Arent said neither was true and that students were never in danger from an outside threat.

Because of the rumors and resulting concern, Arent said the school's phone lines were jammed with calls. He said in a real emergency calls would not have been answered, but were Friday. He said he was concerned with the calls jamming the phone lines, which would be needed to communicate with authorities in an emergency.

"We found some things we need to improve on, some things we need to clean up," Aren't said. "But everyone did well."