Middle School Evacuation Triggered By Surveillance Software

WAUKEGAN, IL — A bomb threat detected by automated surveillance software caused the evacuation of about 775 middle school students for more than two hours Wednesday morning.

The threat was specific to time and location at Abbott Middle School, so students were evacuated shortly after 7 a.m. and taken to the gymnasium at Washington High School, about a block away so emergency personnel could searched the school, according to the Waukegan School District 60.

District spokesperson Nick Alajackis said the bomb threat was discovered through an online system that monitors student activity on district-owned laptops.

The system searches for keywords that suggest a possible threat and flags them for administrators in real time.

Alajackis said the district receives multiple threats throughout every school year. Last fall, it evacuated one of its high school campuses earlier this year due to another, offline threat.

"They're not terribly uncommon, unfortunately," Alajackis said. "We get unsubstantiated threats a few times a year and they require time, they require resources."

Administrators learned of Wednesday's threats shortly before deciding to order an evacuation less than 20 minutes before school was due to begin for the day, he said.

The Waukegan Fire Department and a bomb-sniffing dog from Naval Station Great Lakes conducted the search of the campus, the Lake County News-Sun reported.

Students returned to the middle school around 9:30 a.m., Alajackis said. Several hundred of the students had been picked up by parents or guardians as they waited at the high school gym for the search to finish.

Waukegan police and school officials said the origin of the threat remains under investigation. Given the capabilities of the software, it is likely investigators are aware which district-issued laptop transmitted the threat.

The software vendor said the monitoring software is currently in use in more than 1,400 school districts, where it alerts staff to potential imminent danger, critical mental health issues, inappropriate content and other policy violations.