NEWBURGH – Newburgh Free Academy North was evacuated Monday morning after officials received some form of threat. Students were seen standing in the rain while police searched the building.
A social media post Monday morning said an individual has “planted a bomb in the back of the gym. Blow everybody into lil pieces,” the post stated.
Threats on social media to a number of Newburgh schools started up again last weekend and continued through Monday.
Superintendent of Schools Ed Forgit posted a letter on Monday saying that all of the threats have been unfounded; however, he said that “each and every threat will continue to be addressed with a high level of concern.”
Those threats, though, take away time from providing instruction and raising anxiety levels of everyone in the district. “Because of this we have deployed critical response teams to each school that receives a threat to address the anxiety,” he said. “These teams assess the impact of the threat and how it may be affecting the students and adults in the school. Then a support team is identified and deployed to address the identified needs,” Forgit said.
He also urged parents to discuss with their children how the threats are impacting the community. “Please encourage them to share the names of individuals who may be responsible,” Forgit said.
