Emergency meeting to discuss Northampton High bomb threat canceled

NORTHAMPTON, MA (WGGB/WSHM) - Northampton’s school committee called an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss a bomb threat at the city’s high school on Tuesday. However, school committee member Gwen Agna told Western Mass News that the meeting was cancelled.

According to a letter obtained by Western Mass News that was sent out to parents yesterday, the district’s administration received information regarding a group text where a student issued a bomb threat around 2 p.m. on Tuesday. Students were eventually allowed to leave the building at 3:45 p.m. - a short time after their normal dismissal time - following a complete search of the grounds. Nothing of concern was found.

Earlier in the day Wednesday, administrators at Northampton High School held a discussion with teachers, as well as a brief meeting with students at the school. We caught up with students after school who shared what was said during that meeting.

“We had an announcement in the beginning that was just like thanking the community and thank you for your understanding and all of that and then first period, I think, they had kind of like a slideshow and they talked through it like kind of what happened,” said Northampton High School student Story Mathews.

Mathews also explained her initial reaction to the bomb threat yesterday.

“I didn’t feel like it was a lot of stress because we weren’t on lockdown. We were just on a stay-in-place, so I didn’t really register that it was super serious, but I know that people were stressed about it, but it just felt like there were a lot of mixed messages going around,” Mathews added.

She also told us she felt very comfortable returning to school on Wednesday and nothing felt out of the ordinary. We did reach out to the district’s superintendent and the school committee to find out why the emergency school committee meeting was cancelled and when it is planned to be rescheduled, but have not yet heard back.

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