Automated bomb threat leads to evacuation at DeKalb's Clinton Rosette Middle School

DeKALB – Clinton Rosette Middle School on Monday was one of several schools around the country that received what appeared to be an automated call making a bomb threat, authorities said.

DeKalb School District 428 Superintendent Doug Moeller said the school's main office received the call at 11:25 a.m., and administrators ordered everyone out of the building.

"We knew within eight minutes that every student was safe, every staff member was safe and the building was clear (of people)," Moeller said.

The bomb threat was one of several reported at schools across the U.S. on Monday, many of them under similar circumstances. The Associated Press reported that schools in Colorado, Utah, Delaware, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin all received similar threats as part of a national campaign of "swatting" – triggering an official response based on a false report of a high-level threat situation. Media outlets in the United Kingdom also reported evacuations.

The calls were placed to elementary, middle and high schools. Some did not evacuate because the threats were described as "automated."

The incident appears to be similar to what is being reported around the country, but local authorities are not going to jump to conclusions without investigating local leads, DeKalb Deputy Police Chief John Petragallo said.

"The end result, everyone being safe, is what we want," Petragallo said. "So now we just have to backtrack to try to find the source of the threat.

"Could it be complicated? Yes. So we’ll use all our resources and that could include contacting state and federal officials. We definitely want to get to the bottom of it."

A search of the school with bomb-sniffing dogs turned up no suspicious items, he said.

Shortly after the call was made to Clinton Rosette, school officials had students wait a safe distance from the school, then loaded them onto buses on First Street and took them to the DeKalb Park District Sports and Recreation Center, 1765 S. Fourth St., DeKalb. At 12:22 p.m., the school district told parents about the bomb threat and evacuation. Parents were told that they could pick up their children at the rec center.

Traffic was backed up on Fourth Street as parents rushed to pick up their children.

Among them was Fred Paoletta, whose daughter, Elaine, is a seventh-grader at Clinton Rosette. Paoletta said his wife had called and told him about the situation Monday afternoon.

"The bomb threat I was hoping was a prank," Paoletta said. "I didn’t immediately think anything other than that."

Paoletta said it was alarming to think about his daughter being in jeopardy.

"I’m a veteran, I know what can happen," he said. "I got scared.”

Elaine Paoletta said the evacuation unfolded just as a drill would at first, but then seemed like something more the longer students spent waiting outside the building.

"I was getting a little antsy," she said. "I thought, 'What is actually going on because my teacher didn’t know what was happening.'

"... When they lined us up to get on the bus, our principal told us that it was a bomb threat and I was … a little freaked out about it, I was making sure all my friends were safe, I was texting them and making sure everybody is OK."

Elaine Paoletta said she felt better after leaving the school.

Extracurricular activities at the school were canceled, although a joint band concert with Huntley Middle School students would go on as scheduled, Moeller said.

Moeller said this was the first bomb threat he had encountered since he started with the district in 2009.

"We practice this (evacuation) protocol often and today it went off without a hitch," Moeller said.

He said Monday evening that he had not been aware that schools around the country had been receiving similar threats.

"This is the first I”ve heard of it," Moeller said. "At the time we were not aware of any of these schools anywhere (receiving threats)."

Most of the students were picked up by parents before 2 p.m. The rest were taken to DeKalb High School and put on their regular bus routes, Moeller said.

Tyler Elementary School will have an evacuation drill today, according to an automated message the district sent Monday afternoon.

• The Associated Press contributed to this story.