All Parents / Guardians:
First, I would like to thank you for the patience and support you demonstrated this morning. It has been a very long and challenging day for our school community, and as a parent, I appreciate you may have questions and concerns regarding this morning’s events. In an attempt to answer your questions and keep you as informed as possible, I want to provide some additional information.
At approximately 5:45 a.m. I noticed an email in my inbox stating a bomb was placed somewhere in the district facilities. As soon as I read this email, I took the following steps:
I immediately contacted School Resource Officer Borbolla, as well as Sargent Danko of the Greenwich-Cambridge Police and began coordinating the district's response in partnership with their offices.
Officers from both departments as well as the New York State Police were assigned to the school to investigate and keep non-authorized individuals off school grounds until the K-9 unit arrived.
A two-hour delay was initiated to provide law enforcement with the time necessary to properly search the facility and begin investigating the origins of the email.
Law enforcement and district staff members met multiple times today to deploy resources and secure areas as needed, and plan for the coming days.
Greenwich-Cambridge Police Officers, our SRO, New York State Police Officers and a K-9 unit specially trained to detect bombs from the NYS Police searched all district buildings.
After the search was completed, law enforcement provided the "All Clear" for the district to open and operate as normal.
The district in cooperation with law enforcement will be sweeping all buildings prior to staff/student arrival for the next few days.
In addition, please note:
The threat was not unique to Greenwich CSD.
School districts throughout the state, including most of the school districts in Washington County received the same or similar threat.
Any threat against the district is taken extremely seriously and the district will follow our established safety procedures and under the recommendations from our law enforcement partners. We will never assume the threat is a "hoax".
The district will press charges on anyone who threatens our school community.
As Superintendent of Schools, my first priority is to ensure the safety of everyone who enters our building, and I take that responsibility extremely seriously. I will always do my best to respond to any situation in a calm and professional manner and work to provide timely, accurate, and relevant information to our faculty, staff, and entire community.
If you have any questions regarding the district's response to this situation, please feel free to contact me.